Novel Techniques in Natural Product Extraction to Improve Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activity in Foods

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Process Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 1612

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Instituto de Agroindustrias, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca 69004, Mexico
Interests: meat technology; utilization of agro-industrial bioproducts; bioactive compounds extraction; functional foods; food technology; dairy processing

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Guest Editor
Instituto de Agroindustrias, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca 69004, Mexico
Interests: agrobiotechnology; biocontrol; biofertilizers; biological control; horticultural products; inoculant production; physicochemical quality of agro-products; sustainable agriculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Instituto de Agroindustrias, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca 69004, Mexico
Interests: food bioprocesses (fermentations and proteases); functional foods (prebiotics and bioactive peptides); food technology (microencapsulation) and food microbiology (probiotics)

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Guest Editor
Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua 31125, Mexico
Interests: natural antimicrobials; biofilms; essential oils; fermented foods
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, consumers are showing greater interest in foods that contain bioactive or functional components that provide additional benefits to their health. This has prompted the food industry to look for alternative preservatives that can enhance the safety and quality of foods. Compounds derived from natural sources are excellent candidates to replace synthetic molecules as they can exert their antioxidant and antimicrobial properties on food systems and provide better quality as well as stability for food products.

The food industry and researchers have addressed this situation by exploring modern or non-conventional methods that have emerged over the past few years. In this way, a number of new alternatives to conventional techniques have been proposed for extracting target compounds from various matrices. Green technologiesre examples of non-conventional techniques used to recover bioactive compounds from vegetable matrices. They present some advantages over conventional processes due to lower energy and solvent consumption, shorter extraction times, reduced equipment sizes, and a reduction in the number of processing steps.

Contributions focused on the description of new technologies related to the extraction of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and antimicrobial capacity from plants, animals, or microorganisms are welcome to be submitted to this Special Issue. Furthermore, their potential use in food processes of novel molecules will add valuable knowledge to the field. Papers are welcome to be conceptual or systemic reviews or original research articles.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Green technologies: high-voltage electrical discharges, high hydrostatic pressure, microwave-assisted extraction, pressurized liquid, supercritical fluid extraction, and ohmic heating;
  • New green extraction solvents;
  • New sources of bioactive compounds;
  • Valorization of plants or bio-wastes;
  • Antioxidant activity;
  • Antimicrobial activity.

Dr. Luz Hermila Villalobos Delgado
Dr. Rogelio Valadez Blanco
Dr. Paula Cecilia Guadarrama Mendoza
Prof. Dr. Guadalupe Virginia Nevárez-Moorillón
Guest Editors

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • green technologies
  • extraction
  • antioxidant activity
  • antimicrobial activity
  • functional components
  • bioactive compounds

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 11306 KiB  
Article
Bioactive Extracts of Spirulina platensis Inhibit Colletotrichum orchidearum and Fusarium nirenbergiae: A Green Approach to Hydroponic Lettuce Protection
by Leticia Eduarda Bender, Emily da Luz Monteiro, José Luís Trevizan Chiomento and Luciane Maria Colla
Processes 2025, 13(8), 2483; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13082483 - 6 Aug 2025
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Abstract
The growing demand for food and the environmental impact of conventional agriculture have prompted the search for sustainable alternatives. Phycocyanin (PC) and total phenolic compounds (TPC) extracted from Spirulina platensis have shown potential for the biological control of phytopathogens. The extraction method directly [...] Read more.
The growing demand for food and the environmental impact of conventional agriculture have prompted the search for sustainable alternatives. Phycocyanin (PC) and total phenolic compounds (TPC) extracted from Spirulina platensis have shown potential for the biological control of phytopathogens. The extraction method directly influences the yield and stability of these compounds. This study aimed to establish an efficient extraction protocol for PC and TPC and to evaluate their antimicrobial efficacy in vitro against Colletotrichum orchidearum, Fusarium nirenbergiae, and Alternaria sp. isolated from hydroponically grown lettuce. The phytopathogens were identified based on phylogenetic analyses using sequences from the ITS, EF1-α, GAPDH, and RPB2 gene regions. This is the first report of C. orchidearum in hydroponic lettuce culture in Brazil, expanding its known host range. Extracts were obtained using hydroalcoholic solvents and phosphate buffer (PB), combined with ultrasound-assisted extraction (bath and probe). The extracts were tested for in vitro antifungal activity. Data were analyzed by ANOVA (p < 0.05), followed by Tukey’s test. The combination of the PB and ultrasound probe resulted in the highest PC (95.6 mg·g−1 biomass) and TPC (21.9 mg GAE·g−1) yields, using 10% (w/v) biomass. After UV sterilization, the extract retained its PC and TPC content. The extract inhibited C. orchidearum by up to 53.52% after three days and F. nirenbergiae by 54.17% on the first day. However, it promoted the growth of Alternaria sp. These findings indicate that S. platensis extracts are a promising alternative for the biological control of C. orchidearum and F. nirenbergiae in hydroponic systems. Full article
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