Preparation and characterization of mangiferin-loaded polylactic acid nanofiber mat with antioxidant and anti-browning properties for the development of food packaging products

In this study, antioxidant nanofiber-based food packaging material composed of polylactic acid (PLA) and mangiferin (MG) was produced to reduce food spoilage. To this end, MG was extracted from Mangifera indica and chemically characterized. In vitro assays for scavenging several radical ions showed excellent antioxidant properties of MG. Thereafter, MG was blended with PLA to form nanofibers (PLA-MG) using electrospinning. The Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) images of the prepared nanofibers displayed defect-free homogeneous morphology with an average fiber diameter of 176.89 +/- 61.97 nm. Fabricated nanofibers were physico-chemically characterized. From chromatography, mangiferin content in the PLA-MG fiber was found to be 40.55 +/- 3.7 mu g/mg of fiber. Contact angle measurements of the fabricated nanofibers showed the hydrophobic nature of PLA-MG nanofibers. PLA-MG nanofibers demonstrated a significantly higher antioxidant activity compared to PLA nanofibers (****p < 0.0001), as evidenced by their superior performance in DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP assays. Specifically, PLA-MG nanofibers exhibited 3676 +/- 3.46 mg/100 g vitamin C equivalents in antioxidant activity (VCEAC) and 1866 +/- 2.12 VCEAC in ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging assays respectively. Further, apples wrapped with PLA-MG nanofibers showed that the browning of the fruit decreased when compared with controls. The MTT assay and live-dead assay indicated that the fabricated nanofibers were cytocompatible with L929 fibroblasts. The results showed that the fabricated PLA-MG nanofibers can be an effective non-toxic food packaging material to increase the shelf-life of the food. Finally, PLA-MG nanofiber-coated food container production was demonstrated to be commercialized for the effective transportation of food.