Five blueberry anthocyanins and their antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and hypolipidemic effects in vitro

Chao-Wei Zhu; Han Lü; Lan-Lan Du; Jing Li; Han Chen; Hui-Fang Zhao; Wen-Long Wu; Jian Chen; Wei-Lin Li

doi:10.3389/fnut.2023.1172982

Five blueberry anthocyanins and their antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and hypolipidemic effects in vitro

Front Nutr. 2023 May 18:10:1172982. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1172982. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Chao-Wei Zhu^#^{1

2}, Han Lü^#², Lan-Lan Du^{2

3}, Jing Li¹, Han Chen², Hui-Fang Zhao², Wen-Long Wu², Jian Chen^{1

2}, Wei-Lin Li^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Light Industry and Food Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for the Research and Utilization of Plant Resources, Institute of Botany, Jiangsu Province and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China.
³ Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Forestry College, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The dual epidemic of obesity and diabetes mellitus is becoming an important worldwide public health issue. "Diabesity" is the term used to describe the combined detrimental health effects of both diabetes mellitus and obesity/overweight. Currently, food-derived bioactive compounds are suggested to alleviate diabesity. Blueberries are rich in bioactive anthocyanins, which are associated with contributing to preventing obesity and diabetes mellitus. However, the accurate active compounds and the underlying mechanism are still unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the beneficial effects of blueberry anthocyanin on diabesity. In total, five anthocyanins (delphinidin-3-O-galactoside, delphinidin-3-O-glucoside, petunidin-3-O-galactoside, petunidin-3-O-glucoside, and malvidin-3-O-galactoside) were isolated from rabbiteye blueberry (Vaccinium virgatum) cultivar "Garden blue." All these anthocyanins exhibited oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), scavenging power of ABTS⁺, and DPPH-free radical and inhibitory activity of α-glucosidase in vitro. Moreover, some compounds improved glucose uptake and attenuated lipid accumulation in high glucose and oleic acid-treated HepG2 cells. All these results suggest that blueberry anthocyanins have potential antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and hypolipidemic effects, which may benefit the treatment of diabesity.

Keywords: antioxidant; blueberry anthocyanin; diabesity; hypoglycemic; hypolipidemic.

Grants and funding

This research was financially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32170377) and the Primary Research and Development Plan of Jiangsu Province (Nos. BE2020344 and BE2022371). Support was also received from Jiangsu Scientific and Technological Innovations Platform (Jiangsu Provincial Service Center for Antidiabetic Drug Screening). The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, the decision to publish, or the preparation of the manuscript.