Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Soursop (Annona muricata L.) is an underutilized tropical and subtropical fruit with high nutritional and therapeutic
benefits. This fruit is faced with enormous post-harvest losses due to its high perishability. This work was aimed to optimize
the pectinase-assisted extraction conditions of soursop juice using Doehlert design and to study the effect of pectinase on
its pectin structure.
RESULTS: The predicted models were validated for all the responses studied and the regression coefficients ranged from 0.905
to 0.987 (P ≤ 0.05). An incubation time of 172 min, enzyme concentration of 0.04% (w/w) and incubation temperature at 42.9 °C
were found to be the optimal conditions for soursop juice extraction, which resulted in 75.20%, 3.74, 7.35 °Brix, 87.06%T, and
0.44% MAE for soursop juice yield (%), pH, total soluble solids (TSS) (°Brix), clarity (%T) and titratable acidity (% malic acid
equivalent, MAE), respectively. Morphologically, untreated soursop pulp presented a non-uniform spherical surface; enzyme
hydrolyzed soursop exhibited ruptured and wrinkled surface; meanwhile for the different pectin obtained, untreated soursop
pectin depicted porous surface and enzyme hydrolyzed soursop pectin showed whirling rough surface. Fourier-transform infrared
(FTIR) confirmed the presence of similar chemical group stretching and vibrations in commercial pectin and soursop pectin.
CONCLUSION: Under the optimum conditions, the numerical predictions were similar to the experimental data obtained, thus
confirming the validity of the models. Application of enzyme treatment caused the breakdown of pectin structure as illustrated
by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and FTIR analyses.
