Common wild berry helps combat global threat on WHO warning list
New study by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland reveals that arctic wild berries contain antimicrobial compounds which destroy harmful bacteria,
The surface of wild berry seeds contains plenty of antimicrobial compounds, as revealed in studies by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. These compounds are found in the wild at least in raspberry, sea buckthorn, bilberry, strawberry, cloudberry and cowberry.
According to VTT, the species most suitable for further processing is raspberry, as plenty of both skin and seeds remain as press cake after the juice is extracted.
A small amount of berry extract is efficacious, especially against the dangerous MRSA bacteria found in hospitals.
This will also allow a reduction in the use of antibiotics without decreasing their effect.
Raspberry extracts can be used as raw materials in the food and cosmetics industries, as well as for medical purposes. The extract can be used in skin sprays, creams, transdermal patches and wound dressings.
’The product could easily be used in hospitals as, say, a liquid to spray on the skin before surgery,’ say Panu Lahtinen, Senior Scientist, and Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey, Associate Professor and Senior Advisor at VTT, in an email to Forest.fi.
While preventing the growth of dangerous microbes on human skin, the extracts do not harm the beneficial bacteria found there. According to Lahtinen, previous studies support this observation. VTT has studied berries for over 20 years.
Wild raspberry (Rubus idaeus) is common in the northern parts of Europe. In Finland, it is common up to Oulu around Finland’s midriff, and can occur locally even farther north. It grows in herb-rich and mesic (moist) heath forests, beside ditches, streams and rivers, at forest edges, and on felling sites and roadsides.
Antimicrobial compounds protect against moulds
In natural environments, the role of antimicrobial compounds is to protect berry seeds from, for example, attacks by moulds before germination. On human skin, the same compounds prevent the growth of dangerous microbes.
Antimicrobial compounds can be enriched from the press cake without using harmful solvents. VTT has patented an environmentally friendly technology for this.
Lahtinen says that the product, developed from berries and nanocellulose, is completely bio-based.
’The fast-acting surgical spray and efficacious dressing are based on a manufacturing process we have developed, where the surface and pores of a nanocellulose film are impregnated with a berry extract in a way that avoids trapping the antimicrobial compounds inside the fibre network,’ Lahtinen reports.
The nanocellulose fibres, produced by grinding conventional cellulose, are much smaller than usual, down to the length of a few nanometres (about one hundred thousandth of the thickness of paper). As a natural material, nanocellulose is compatible with human cells and tissues, so that there is no rejection.
The same compounds can also be produced by cultivating plant cells, in which case fluctuations in berry harvests would not affect the production.
’More information is needed, especially from toxicology tests, such as have previously been made on cloudberry seed extract. Some tests may also be made within the on-going EU project InnCoCells. Still, we estimate that entering the market will take a minimum of 1.5–2.5 years, since we aim at approval as a medical device,’ Lahtinen and Oksman-Caldentey write.
What they are now looking for is a company that would join VTT in developing the project towards commercialisation.
In addition to arctic berries, many species of trees have been found to have antimicrobial properties.
A doctoral thesis defended at the University of Jyväskylä found that pines, spruces, birches, oaks, eucalypti and alders, for example, exhibit natural antiviral activity, when extracts were studied on different surfaces.
Read more: Five facts about the bilberry – not only superfood, but also a biodiversity indicator
