CBV UNAB researchers participate in the Ring project for the recovery of agribusiness waste

The Plant Biotechnology Center of the Andrés Bello University and the universities of Talca and Chile participate in the ANID Anillo CHICOBIO project, which seeks enzymes from native fruits to process residues and thus obtain useful ingredients and compounds in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics.

Pamela Alarcón, UNAB Journalist.- The papaya (Vasconcellea pubescens), the white strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) and the calafate (Berberis microphyllaa) are not only tasty representatives of Chile’s native fruit biodiversity. The three are also the fruit models chosen by the CHICOBIO Ring project to identify new enzymes in their cell walls that could be used to valorise agribusiness waste and thus give rise to beneficial ingredients and compounds for people.

Supported by the National Agency for Research and Development, ANID, the CHICOBIO project (Chilean Fruits Cell Wall Components as Biotechnological Resources) is led by Dr. María Alejandra Moya, from the University of Talcatogether with the doctors Raul Herrera and daisy gutierrezfrom the same university; Michael Handford, from the University of Chile and Susana Saez, from Plant Biotechnology Center of the Andrés Bello University (CBV UNAB).

“The project focuses its research on native fruits, as a way of valuing our genetic wealth and contributing to the circular economy,” says Dr. María Alejandra Moya, leader of the initiative.

As the researcher explains, the native fruits contain a battery of enzymes that can be used for biotechnological purposes, to convert agribusiness waste into valuable products with potential use as functional food.

Through the study of papaya, strawberries and calafate, CHICOBIO researchers seek to generate new knowledge, such as hitherto undiscovered genetic and molecular information, and also design biotechnological strategies that make it possible to value the waste generated by agribusiness, an area that It has a marked presence in the Maule region.

According to the report Use of residues and/or by-products in the Maule agro-industry (Maule Feeds the World 2020), In most frozen, juice, oil, canned, and dehydrated companies in the region, raw material losses are around 20%, but there are cases in which waste exceeds 75% of the product that enters the process.. Waste is mainly made up of raw material that is not used in the production process, such as fruit that falls to the ground, pomace, alperujo, pomasa, stones, peels and leaves, to which is added unused pulp and fruit losses.

The value of pectin

“This type of work requires experience in various areas of knowledge. In this proposal, each participating unit contributes from a different point of view, and together we are generating new knowledge and in an integrated way”, points out the Dr. Moya, researcher at the University of Talca and project leader.

One of the units that are part of the CHICOBIO Ring project corresponds to the Dr. Susana Sáez, principal investigator of the Mucilab laboratory of the Plant Biotechnology Center of the Andrés Bello University (CBV UNAB). Working with her are three other researchers from the Mucilab group: the doctor in biotechnology and postdoctoral researcher, Dayan Sanhueza; the research assistant Alejandra Salazar and the doctoral student Pablo Sepúlveda.

Regarding the work with native fruits, Dr. Sáez points out that “the ideal would be to find specific enzymes that we can use to process industrial waste and obtain high-value compounds that can be used, for example, to make a superfood. A nutritional supplement for humans, for animals, an extract with applications in cosmetics or as an emulsifying or texturizing agent”, exemplifies Sáez.

One example is pectins, high-cost polysaccharides used in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and food industries as a gelling, thickening, or emulsifying agent.

“There is a lot of interest from the industry in valuing their residues and precisely one of the motivations is to process them to isolate pectin, because sometimes these same companies buy these polysaccharides at a high price, which come mainly from citrus fruits,” says Dr. Sáez, adding that the CBV UNAB researchers have discovered abundant pectin in papaya mucilage.