Effects of orange variety on the physiochemical properties of self-secretory extracellular vesicle and its application potential as nutrient-rich beverage

Plant-derived extracellular vesicles have presented great potential in drug and/or nutrition delivery, but it is still unclear whether the variety affects the physicochemical properties of plant derived extracellular vesicles. In this work, the extracellular vesicles from various oranges were first characterized, including navel orange juice (NOJ), green orange juice (GOJ), bingtang orange juice (BTOJ) and blood orange juice (BOJ). The results exhibited obvious distinctions of extracellular vesicles among different oranges, such as vesicle concentration, surface potential, lipid composition, protein content and so on. Furthermore, the polyphenol-loaded orange beverages were successfully prepared via incorporating polyphenols into the orange-derived extracellular vesicles in an amorphous form. Taking curcumin (Cur) as an example, extracellular vesicles could confer it with the higher solubility, stability and bioaccessibility after encapsulation. Conclusively, the extracellular vesicles in NOJ exhibited more satisfactory results for curcumin delivery than those in the other three orange juices. In particular, one-step prepared polyphenol-rich orange beverages have higher antioxidant ability than blank orange beverages regardless of the influence of fruit variety. This suggests that using extracellular vesicle as natural nanocarrier is a feasible method for constructing the full plant-based functional food. Additionally, the current study will provide a meaningful information for the selection of plant-derived extracellular vesicle in the future research.