LAUSR

Achiote (Bixa orellana L.) is a shrub from the intertropical regions of America, belonging to the Bixaceae family (Lourido Pérez & Martínez Sánchez, 2010; Viuda-Martos et al., 2012). Its fruits are an ovoid capsule with seeds, which are of great interest as a natural dye in food and cosmetics due to its bixin and norbixin content (Rodrigues et al., 2007; Verbeyst et al., 2010). It has been used in traditional medicine (Bachir Bey et al., 2014) associated with the presence of phenolic compounds (Radhika et al., 2010; Shilpi et al., 2006), which constitutes one of the most important secondary metabolites (Moo-Huchin et al., 2015). Its leaves contain compounds with microbiological (Gómez et al., 2012; ViudaMartos et al., 2012) and antioxidant activity (Sepúlveda et al., 2016; Viuda-Martos et al., 2012) attributed mainly to its phenolic compounds content (Gómez et al., 2012).