Corn Lecithin for Injection from Deoiled Corn Germ: Extraction, Composition, and Emulsifying Properties

The roles of soybean lecithin in aquafeed: a crucial need and update

Soybean lecithin is extensively used as the dietary supplementation of phospholipids in animal production. Soybean lecithin plays significant roles in aquafeed as growth promoter, feed enhancer, immunity modulator and antioxidant activity stimulator for aquaculture species. Besides, soybean lecithin is also reported to help aquaculture species being resilient to physical and chemical stressors. In this review, common sources, chemical structure and mode of action of lecithin, with highlight on soybean lecithin application in aquaculture over four-decadal studies published between 1983 and 2023, were evaluated and summarized. By far, soybean lecithin is best-known for its beneficial effects, availability yet cost-effective for aquafeed formulation. Findings from this review also demonstrate that although nutritional profile of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and phosphatidylcholine from egg yolk and marine sources are superior to those from plant sources such as soybean, it is rather costly for sustainable application in aquafeed formulation. Moreover, commercially available products that incorporate soybean lecithin with other feed additives are promising to boost aquaculture production. Overall, effects of soybean lecithin supplementation are well-recognized on larval and juvenile of aquaculture species which having limited ability to biosynthesis phospholipids de novo, and correspondingly attribute to phospholipid, a primary component of soybean lecithin, that is essential for rapid growth during early stages development. In addition, soybean lecithin supplementation plays a distinguish role in stimulating maturation of gonadal development in the adults, especially for crustaceans.

Optimization of n-Hexane-Acetone System for Extraction of Phosphatidylcholine and Phosphatidylethanolamine by Response Surface Methodology

Eggs are nutritious and cheap and easily available. Egg yolk is one of the sources of phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE). PC and PE have good emulsifying properties, and they are widely used and in high demand for pharmaceutical, feed and cosmetic applications. Red cordyceps egg yolk powder (RCEYP) was selected as the raw material to obtain high content of PC and PE by ethanol extraction and low temperature cryoprecipitation in n-hexane-acetone system (HAS), in which the process conditions of PC and PE extraction by HAS process were optimized. The phospholipids were quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD). The effects of freezing time, material-liquid ratio, acetone washing times, solvent ratio of n-hexane to acetone and freezing temperature on the PC and PE contents and the phospholipid yield were investigated. The optimal conditions for the extraction of PC and PE from RCEYP by HAS were determined by Box-Behnken design (BBD) as follows: the solvent ratio of n-hexane to acetone was 1:6, the freezing time was 11.31 h, and the freezing temperature was -19℃. The total content of (PC+PE) in the phospholipids precipitated under these conditions amounted to 96.16%, of which 81.12% was PC and 15.04% was PE.

Lecithins from Vegetable, Land, and Marine Animal Sources and Their Potential Applications for Cosmetic, Food, and Pharmaceutical Sectors

The aim of this work was to review the reported information about the phospholipid composition of lecithins derived from several natural sources (lipids of plant, animal, and marine origin) and describe their main applications for the cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical sectors. This study was carried out using specialized search engines and according to the following inclusion criteria: (i) documents published between 2005 and 2020, (ii) sources of lecithins, (iii) phospholipidic composition of lecithins, and (iv) uses and applications of lecithins. Nevertheless, this work is presented as a narrative review. Results of the review indicated that the most studied source of lecithin is soybean, followed by sunflower and egg yolk. Contrarily, only a few numbers of reports focused on lecithins derived from marine animals despite the relevance of this source in association with an even higher composition of phospholipids than in case of those derived from plant sources. Finally, the main applications of lecithins were found to be related to their nutritional aspects and ability as emulsion stabilizers and lipid component of liposomes.