Abstract
The antioxidant activities of the ethanol, petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and water extract fractions from the seeds of papaya were evaluated in this study. The ethyl acetate fraction showed the strongest DPPH and hydroxyl free radical-scavenging activities, and its activities were stronger than those of ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate, respectively. The n-butanol fraction demonstrated the greatest ABTS+ radicals scavenging activity. The ethyl acetate fraction and the n-butanol fraction not only showed higher antioxidant activities than the petroleum ether fraction, water fraction and ethanol fraction, but also showed higher superoxide anion and hydrogen peroxide radicals scavenging activities than those of the other extract fractions. The high amount of total phenolics and total flavonoids in the ethyl acetate and n-butanol fractions contributed to their antioxidant activities. The ethyl acetate fraction was subjected to column chromatography, to yield two phenolic compounds, p-hydroxybenzoic acid (1) and vanillic acid (2), which possessed significant antioxidant activities. Therefore, the seeds of papaya and these compounds might be used as natural antioxidants.
Highlights
Papaya (Carica papaya L.), a kind of tropical evergreen fruit tree originated from Mexico and Central America, is mainly found distributed in the south of China, such as Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Taiwan, and Fujian Province
It was found that the radical-scavenging activities of the positive control and various solvent extract increased with increasing concentration, and all the regression equations were significant at p < 0.05 (Figure 1 and Table 1), so all five of the studied samples had DPPH free radical-scavenging activity
This data presented in this paper indicates that the ethyl acetate fraction of papaya seed extract had the strongest antioxidant activity, and the n-butanol fraction had the second strongest antioxidant activity
Summary
Papaya (Carica papaya L.), a kind of tropical evergreen fruit tree originated from Mexico and Central America, is mainly found distributed in the south of China, such as Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Taiwan, and Fujian Province. Much peel and seeds waste is produced after the processing and consumption of papaya fruits. This waste, that usually polluted our habitat, could be utilized. The fruits and the waste of papaya have been utilized as a new medicine as well as invigorant and cosmetic in recent years in China. The antioxidant activities of the other extract fractions from papaya seeds have not been studied, so it was necessary to study their antioxidant activities for the purpose of the evaluating the potential utilization of this waste. Six different methods were used to evaluate the antioxidant activities of the different solvent fractions obtained from papaya seeds
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