Phytochemical Constituents, Antimicrobial and Antitumor Effects of Pomegranate Fruit (Punica granatum L).

Shalaby, M. T.; Dawood, D. H.; Hefni, M.; Murad, Basma M.

doi:10.21608/jfds.2019.60208

Phytochemical Constituents, Antimicrobial and Antitumor Effects of Pomegranate Fruit (Punica granatum L).

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Food Industries, Faculty of Agri., Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt

² Department of Agriculture Chemistry, Faculty of Agri., Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt

10.21608/jfds.2019.60208

Abstract

Pomegranate fruit has exposed various health benefits in many recent studies due to its rich content of bioactive chemical compounds. This study was carried out to investigate the content of these bioactive compounds in pomegranate fruit along with its antimicrobial and antitumor effects. Pomegranate peel powder and juice were analyzed for its phytochemical constituent content ( total phenols, total flavonoids). Phenols and flavonoids contents were estimated qualitative and quantitative using HPLC technique. Furthermore, antitumor activity was tested in vitro on human cell lines. Likewise, antimicrobial and antioxidant activity were investigated. The results showed that the both ethanolic and aqueous extracts of juice and peels powder have antitumor and antimicrobial activity.Phytochemicals have shown superior content in peels than juice including total polyphenols 61.63 and 15.93 mg/g, and total flavonoids 49.3 and 25.85 mg/g, in peels and juice, respectively. Peels extract has exhibited significant antimicrobial activity higher than aqueous extract of juice at 1000 ppm concentration. Thus, peels and juice extracts demonstrated higher antimicrobial activity against E.coli, fungi and yeast. In the test of pomegranate peels and juice extracts for the protective effect against human cell lines, the pomegranate extracts and AgNPs exhibited significant protective effect.In conclusion, our study suggested that pomegranate fruits or its extracts can use as antitumor and antimicrobial agents. Pomegranate fruits are sources of bioactive compounds such as phenolic and flavonoids with potentially high antioxidant activities.

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