Abstract
Citrus plants are known to possess beneficial biological activities for human health. In addition, ethnopharmacological application of plants is a good tool to explore their bioactivities and active compounds. This research was carried out to evaluate the phenolic and flavonoid analysis, antioxidant properties, anti inflammatory and anti cancer activity of Citrus aurantium bloom. The total phenolics and flavonoids results revealed that methanolic extract contained high total phenolics and flavonoids compared to ethanolic and boiling water extracts. The obtained total phenolics value for methanolic Citrus aurantium bloom extract was 4.55 ± 0.05 mg gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/g dry weight (DW), and for total flavonoids it was 3.83 ± 0.05 mg rutin equivalent/g DW. In addition, the RP-HPLC analyses of phenolics and flavonoids indicated the presence of gallic acid, pyrogallol, syringic acid, caffeic acid, rutin, quercetin and naringin as bioactive compounds. The antioxidant activity of Citrus aurantium bloom were examined by the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) assay and the ferric reducing/antioxidant potential (FRAP). The free radical scavenging and ferric reducing power activities were higher for the methanolic extract of Citrus aurantium bloom at a concentration of 300 μg/mL, with values of 55.3% and 51.7%, respectively, as compared to the corresponding boiling water and ethanolic extracts, but the activities were lower than those of antioxidant standards such as BHT and α-tocopherol. Furthermore, the anti-inflammatory result of methanolic extract showed appreciable reduction in nitric oxide production of stimulated RAW 264.7 cells at the presence of plant extract. Apart from that, the anticancer activity of the methanolic extract was investigated in vitro against human cancer cell lines (MCF-7; MDA-MB-231), human colon adenocarcinoma (HT-29) and Chang cell as a normal human hepatocyte. The obtained result demonstrated the moderate to appreciable activities against all cell line tested and the compounds present in the extracts are non-toxic which make them suitable as potential therapeutics.
Highlights
Nowadays, the study of oxygen-containing free radicals in humans and their roles has been a growing interest among scientists
The results obtained showed that methanolic extract of citrus bloom contains high total phenolic and flavonoid contents compared to the ethanolic and hot water extract, with a value of 4.8 ± 0.05 mg gallic acid equivalent/g
The total phenolic contents obtained was found to be lower compared to total phenolic content from C. aurantium peel, with a value of 223.2 mg gallic acid equivalent/g while the total flavonoid contents were found to be lower, with a value of 7.7 mg quercetin equivalent/g [14]
Summary
The study of oxygen-containing free radicals in humans and their roles has been a growing interest among scientists. The conclusion has been that these radicals may contribute as factors in decreasing the immune system function [1] Synthetic antioxidants such as butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) are known to posses free radical inhibition properties in the human body, but these compounds can be toxic and present hazards to the human body as well [2]. Citrus is believed to possess bioactivities such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and is suggested to be responsible for the prevention of cancer and degenerative diseases [12]. Those bioactivities of citrus are due to the present of bioactive compound such as phenolics, flavonoids, essential oil, and vitamins [13]. Information about possible bioactivities of this part of the plant is rather limited, an experiment was conducted to determine phytochemical analysis including phenolic and flavonoid compounds and their biological activities such as antioxidant properties, anti inflammatory and anticancer activities
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