Enzyme-Assisted Extraction of Phenolic Compounds

Despite the abundant literature about the presence of antioxidant activity in fruits and vegetables, few of those reports are related to the effect of the extraction process on the activity of the antioxidant extract. Conventional extraction can damage the activity of the phenolic antioxidants, which could be sensitive to specific solvents or high temperatures. This motivates the search for efficient extraction processes of natural antioxidants by means of mild conditions protecting the stability of their activity. The application of low-cost commercial enzymes that are used in the food industry to degrade main components of vegetable cell walls might improve the extraction performance of phenolic compounds without using denaturing conditions and thus preserving their antioxidant activity.