Lipophilized rosmarinic acid: Impact of alkyl type and food matrix on antioxidant activity, and optimized enzymatic production.

In this study, the initial focus was on exploring the simultaneous impact of the oil-based food matrix and the polarity of rosmarinic acid derivatives on the antioxidant properties. Rosmarinic acid (RA) showed remarkable DPPH, FRAP, and ABTS radical scavenging activities, followed by methyl rosmarinate (MR) and ethyl rosmarinate (ER). In bulk oil, both conjugated dienes and p-AnV values reached a peak in the following order after 30 days: ER > MR > RA = BHT > control (no antioxidant). In the oil structured using monoacylglycerol, MR was more effective than ER and RA. For ethyl cellulose oleogel, emulsion, and gelled emulsion systems, RA was more effective. Additionally, after confirming the importance of the food matrix on the antioxidant activity of RA derivatives, the lipophilization of RA with ethanol was optimized as a model with Lipozyme 435 in hexane. A conversion yield of as high as 85.59% for ER was achieved, as quantified by HPLC-UV and confirmed by HPLC-DAD-ESI-qTOFMS.