Antioxidant and Antitumor Activities of Methanolic Extracts Obtained from Red Delicious and Granny Smith Apples' Seeds

Abstract

The relationship between oxidative stress and many life-menacing diseases has been documented in the last two decades. This correlation has resulted in extensive investigations to find potential antioxidants for the protection and management of such diseases. In this work, the seeds of Red Delicious and Granny Smith apples were extracted by four solvents including water, methanol, chloroform, and n-hexane. Extraction was operated by the application of three techniques, which are kinetic maceration, ultrasound- and microwave-encouraging extraction methods. With each technique, three patterns were followed involving non-sequential, sequential decliningly- and growingly-ordered in polarity. Nine methanolic extracts from each apple seeds' phenotype were evaluated for their in vitro biological properties. This assessment included the antioxidant activity tested versus hydroxyl and DPPH free radicals, and antitumor activity explored via MTT assay versus AMN3, HeLa, MCF-7, and SKG cancer cell lines. The results reported that the obtained methanolic extracts displayed a convenient biological activity versus the test free radicals and cancer cell lines, with notability contributed to those obtained from the seeds of Red Delicious apple. Also, the results documented that the desirable extraction pattern was the sequential decliningly-ordered in polarity and the recommended technique was the ultrasound-encouraging extraction. This study inferred that there is a significant relationship between the antitumor activity of these methanolic extracts and their antioxidant activity. This may guide to explore novel antioxidant and/or antitumor agents from the seeds of the applied apple phenotypes.