Abstract
Punica granatum L. has a long standing culinary and medicinal traditional use in Mauritius. This prompted a comparative study to determine the bioefficacy of the flower, peel, leaf, stem, and seed extracts of the Mauritian P. granatum. The flower and peel extracts resulting from organic solvent extraction exhibited strong antioxidant activities which correlated with the high levels of total phenolics, flavonoids, and proanthocyanidins. The peel extract had the most potent scavenging capacity reflected by high Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity value (5206.01 ± 578.48 μmol/g air dry weight), very low IC50 values for hypochlorous acid (0.004 ± 0.001 mg air dry weight/mL), and hydroxyl radicals scavenging (0.111 ± 0.001 mg air dry weight/mL). Peel extracts also significantly inhibited S. mutans (P < 0.001), S. mitis (P < 0.001), and L. acidophilus (P < 0.05) growth compared to ciprofloxacin. The flower extract exhibited high ferric reducing, nitric oxide scavenging, and iron (II) ions chelation and significantly inhibited microsomal lipid peroxidation. Furthermore, it showed a dose-dependent inhibition of xanthine oxidase with an IC50 value of 0.058 ± 0.011 mg air dry weight/mL. This study showed that nonedible parts of cultivated pomegranates, that are generally discarded, are bioactive in multiassay systems thereby suggesting their potential use as natural prophylactics and in food applications.
Highlights
Punica granatum L. fruit or fruit juice has for the past decade been advocated as an interesting functional food that can confer health benefits beyond basic nutrition [1, 2]
Brain heart infusion agar (BHI) was used for growth of S. mutans and S. mitis while MRS agar was utilized for L. acidophilus
Total phenolics of the extracts ranged between 0.65 ± 0.004 mg gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/g air dry weight (ADW) and 336.51 ± 0.70 mg GAE/g ADW with the highest content measured in the flower (Table 1)
Summary
Punica granatum L. fruit or fruit juice has for the past decade been advocated as an interesting functional food that can confer health benefits beyond basic nutrition [1, 2]. The edible and nonedible parts (Figure 1) have been reported to treat different pathological conditions in different folklore medicine [4,5,6]. Documented use of pomegranate in Mauritian folklore medicine includes ingestion of macerated bark extracts to treat asthma, chronic diarrhea, chronic dysentery, relaxation of the larynx, and intestinal worms [7]. The beneficial effect of pomegranate juice was reported in an initial phase II clinical trial in patients with prostate cancer [10]. The health benefits of pomegranate have been ascribed to the pluripharmacological effects of International Journal of Food Science (a)
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