Fabrication and characterization of glycosylated-zein as an effective delivery system for rutin: Formation mechanism, physicochemical properties, and bioaccessibility in vitro

Rutin possesses various potential benefits, but its poor water solubility and bioaccessibility have limited its utilization. In current study, glucose glycosylated zein (GLZ) was prepared using Maillard reaction to develop a novel delivery system for rutin. Next, rutin was loaded into GLZ by anti-solvent method to obtain rutin-loaded glycosylated zein nanoparticles (GLZ-RUT), which exhibited good protein solubility and encapsulation efficiency (62.43%). Fluorescence spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry analyses demonstrated that rutin was successfully encapsulated by GLZ and the main forces responsible for the formation of the nanoparticles were hydrogen bonding, electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions. Compared with zein, GLZ-based nanoparticles possessed better physicochemical properties, such as improved solubility, redispersability and environmental stability, storage stability and higher 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging activity. For another, the bioaccessibility of rutin in simulated gastrointestinal tract was promoted from 24.40% to 77.70% under the protection of the GLZ delivery system. All these results suggest that GLZ is promising to be a novel and effective delivery system for flavonoid active molecule with poor water solubility represented by rutin in functional foods, beverages, and even pharmaceutical products.