O efeito antioxidante e hipolipidêmico dos sucos de diferentes cultivares de laranja (Citrus sinensis) no organismo modelo Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

Obesity is a disorder related to the excessive accumulation of body fat and is a risk factor for the development of multiple diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes mellitus, some types of cancer, among others. Due to this problem, the search for alternatives that can minimize the effects of this condition is essential. There are several treatments used for this purpose, one of them is through the consumption of natural foods that have beneficial properties to health. Orange juice (Citrus sinensis) is a strong candidate, as it has a wide variety of phytochemicals proven to be capable of reducing fat accumulation and oxidative stress caused by obesity. There are several cultivars of oranges, in the present study emphasis was given to the cultivars 'Bahia', 'Cara cara', 'Moro' and 'Pêra' and to investigate their antiobesity effects, the phytochemical profile of these cultivars was first traced through a bibliographic review , and there was a greater presence of carotenoids, such as beta-carotene and cryptoxanthin in cara cara (SLCC) and bahia (SLB) orange juices, flavonoids such as hesperidin in pear orange juice (SLP), and anthocyanins exclusively in orange juice (SLM). The hypolipidemic and antioxidant effects of the juices of the aforementioned cultivars were also evaluated using the animal model Caenorhabditis elegans by quantifying triglycerides, lipids and reactive oxygen species (ROS) under standard conditions and under induced obesity. However, it was not possible to establish a pattern of results with the experiments, not generating any statistical significance between them, in addition, the induced obesity model was not carried out successfully, among the hypotheses to justify what happened in these situations are the bias of protein quantification used to standardize the triglycerides and ROS quantifications, the nutritional integrity of the juices that may have been altered due to storage issues, the insufficient amount of glucose used to induce obesity in the animals and persistent contamination in the culture media of the animals used in the experiments. Therefore, the results did not come out as expected in view of the literature analyzed during the development of the project.