FOOD SCIENCE ›› 2025, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (23): 54-62.doi: 10.7506/spkx1002-6630-20250616-105

• Tea Processing Quality Chemistry and Nutritional Health • Previous Articles    

Effect of Different Forms of Theaflavins on Their Absorption and Transport Based on the Caco-2 Cell Model

LU Yuting, XIA Hongjuan, FU Zhixuan, WU Yuanjie, WU Haoren, LIU Zhonghua, SHI Meng   

  1. (1. College of Food Science and Technology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China; 2. College of Engineering of Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; 3. Hunan Tea Group Company Limited, Changsha 410125, China; 4. Key Laboratory of Tea Science of Ministry of Education, National Research Center of Engineering and Technology for Utilization Ingredients from Botanicals, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China)
  • Published:2025-12-26

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Abstract: The present study investigated the effects of three existing forms of theaflavins (TFs) after digestion: aqueous solutions, oil-water mixtures and water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions on their cellular uptake and transport using the Caco-2 cell model. The results demonstrated that the cellular uptake rate of TFs in the W/O emulsion was 11.02%, which was 3.13 and 2.50 times higher than that of TFs in the aqueous solution (3.52%) and the oil-water mixture (4.41%), respectively. After 4 h incubation, theaflavin (TF), theaflavin-3-gallate (TF3G), theaflavin-3’-gallate (TF3’G), and theaflavin-3,3’-digallate (TFDG) in the emulsion were all absorbed, with uptake rates of 5.83%, 1.36%, 2.63%, and 1.21%, respectively. In contrast, only TF was detected in the oil-water mixture and aqueous solution. The cellular secretion rates of TFs in the oil-water mixture and aqueous solution increased slowly from 1 to 4 h of incubation, whereas that of TFs in the W/O emulsion increased rapidly. After 4 h incubation, the cellular secretion rate of TFs in the W/O emulsion reached 28.72%, which was 3.6 and 2.5 times higher than that of TFs in the aqueous solution and the oil-water mixture, respectively. Only two monomers, TF and TF3G, were detected in the secretion from the aqueous solution group, whereas all four TF monomers were identified in both the emulsion and oil-water mixture groups. The secretion rates of TF, TF3G, TF3’G, and TFDG from the emulsion were 16.32%, 2.15%, 3.97%, and 6.28%, respectively, which were 2.39, 1.90, 1.78, and 4.49 folds higher than those of the oil-water mixture, respectively. The bioavailability of TFs in the W/O emulsion was 22.95%, 11.3 and 4.4 folds higher than that of the aqueous solution and the oil-water mixture, respectively. This study demonstrates that W/O emulsions significantly improve both the cellular absorption and bioavailability of TFs, providing an important theoretical foundation for their application in the functional food industry.

Key words: water-in-oil emulsion; theaflavins; Caco-2 cell model; bioavailability

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