Effect of high hydrostatic pressure treatment on antioxidant bioaccessibility from tomato juice and its modulation of gut microbiota.

High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) processing can positively impact food safety and quality. However, limited information is available regarding the effect of HHP treatment on the bioaccessibility of individual carotenoids and polyphenols from tomato juice in the small intestine and colon. HHP treatment (550 MPa, 10 min) significantly increased the cis-lycopene proportion in both the small intestine and colon and increased the bioaccessibility of total phenols in the colon. After 24 h of fermentation, the microbial community structure of the HHP-treated tomato juice was closer to that of fresh tomato juice. Additionally, the relative abundance of Enterobacterales, Enterobacteriaceae, and Escherichia_Shigella was lower in the HHP-treated tomato juice in the fermentation system than in the thermally-treated (110 °C, 8.6 s) juice. Based on a healthy gut micro-ecology, the findings of this study provides a rationale for the processing of nutritionally healthy HHP-processed juice.