Antioxidant and Prebiotic activity of Pectin from banana peel as a health-promoting ingredient

Background and objectives: Pectin is a non-starch polysaccharide widely used in the food industry as a gelling agent, thickening agent, stabilizer and fat substitute, and in pharmaceutical industries as the bioactive components, plus in biomedical application for tissue engineering and drug delivery. It is also a dietary fiber that has biological functions. Pectin can be found in food by-products such as citrus peel, apple pulp and banana peel. Banana is a common food worldwide, but the peel is often discarded. This research aimed to extract pectin from banana by-products and identify its properties which have the potential to be functional foods. Methods: Pectin was extracted from banana peels (BP), banana stem (BS) and orange peels (OP), sources of commercial pectin, by using solvent and acidic water extraction. All samples were characterized for their chemical properties (the degree of esterification (DE) and anhydrouronic acid (AUA) content), antioxidant activity (using ABTS and FRAP methods), and prebiotic activity. Results: The BP pectin and BS pectin were categorized as low methoxyl pectin with the DE 37.08 ± 1.72% and 33.91 ± 1.34%, respectively, while OP pectin was high methoxyl pectin (76.50%). The BP, BS and OP pectin had an AUA contents of 46.30 ± 0.43%, 40.05 ± 3.74% and 65.63± 2.54%, respectively. The antioxidant activity of BP pectin was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than those of pectin from BS and OP according to both ABTS and FRAP methods. For the prebiotic activity, the survival of Lactobacillus paracasei and Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12 in pomegranate juice with BP pectin added for 14 days were significantly higher (6.20 ± 0.02 and 5.71 ± 0.004 log CFU/ml, respectively), than those without pectin (4.24 ± 0.04 and 4.18 ± 0.14 log CFU/ml, respectively). Conclusion: Pectin from BP was low methoxyl pectin which could be used as gelling agent, emulsifier and thickener in food industries. It also had high antioxidant activity and prebiotic activity. Therefore, BP could be considered as a potential raw material for the production of value-added pectin which has health-promoting attributes.