Comparison of phytochemical constituents and antioxidant activities of aqueous and alcoholic extracts of saffron
Main Article Content
Keywords
saffron, extraction, phytochemical compounds, antioxidant behaviour
Abstract
In the present work, phytochemical compounds and antioxidant activities of three aqueous, ethanolic (50 and 80%, v/v) and methanolic (50 and 80%, v/v) extracts of saffron during 1 and 24 h of shaking time were compared. Results showed that the ethanolic solution (80%, v/v) extracted for 24 h had the highest amounts of phenolic compounds (29.2 g gallic acid (Gal)/g dry weight (DW)), followed by 1 h aqueous extract (17.53 mg Gal/g DW) and 1 h methanol extract (50%, v/v, 14.5 mg Gal/g DW). The total flavonoid contents for all extracts were varied from 0.20 to 0.56 mg quercetin/g DW. Although all the extracts were capable to scavenge the 2,2?-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl free-radical, ethanolic extract was found to be the best antioxidant activity (84.22%). Solvent type and extraction time had significant effects on the antioxidant capacities and phytochemical contents of the saffron extracts. A significant positive correlation was found between the antioxidant activity, total phenolic (r2=0.991) and flavonoid (r2=0.996) contents (P<0.05) for 24 h the extracted extracts. High performance liquid chromatography analysis also demonstrated that the components amounts of crocins, picrocrocin and safranal were varied in the saffron samples extracted from the different solvents.
References
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Gharibzahedi, S.M.T., Razavi, S.H. and Mousavi, S.M., 2013. Comparison of antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities of biocolorant synthesized by Dietzia natronolimnaea HS-1 cells grown in batch, fed-batch and continuous cultures. Industrial Crops and Products 49: 10-16.
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Pourmorad, F., Hosseinimehr, S.J. and Shahabimajd, N., 2006. Antioxidant activity, phenol and flavonoid contents of some selected Iranian medicinal plants. African Journal of Biotechnology 5: 1142-1145.
Sanchez-Vioque, R., Rodrigues-Conde, M.F., Reina-Urena, J.V., Escolano-Tercero, M.A., Herraiz-Penalver, D. and Santana-Meridas, O., 2012. In vitro antioxidant and metal chelating properties of corm, tepal and leaf from saffron (Crocus sativus L.). Industrial Crops and Products 39: 149-153.
Sariri, R., Sabbaghzadeh, R. and Poumohamad, F., 2011. In vitroantioxidant and anti-tyrosinase activity of methanol extracts from Crocus sativus flowers. Pharmacologyonline 2: 1205-1215.
Serrano-Diaz, J., Sanchez, A.M., Maggi, L., Martinez-Tome, M., Garcia-Diz, L., Murcia, M.A. and Alonso, G.L., 2012. Increasing the applications of Crocus sativus flowers as natural antioxidants. Journal of Food Science 77: C1162-C1168.
Souri, E., Amin, G., Farsam, H. and Tehrani, M., 2008. Screening of antioxidant activity and phenolic content of 24 medicinal plant extracts. DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences 16: 83-87.
Sultana, B., Anwar, F. and Ashraf, M., 2009. Effect of extraction solvent/technique on the antioxidant activity of selected medicinal plant extracts. Molecules 14: 2167-2180.
Tarantilis, P.A., Polissiou, M. and Manfait, M., 1994. Separation of picrocrocin, cis-trans-crocins and safranal of saffron using high performance liquid chromatography with photodiode-array detection. Journal of Chromatography A 664: 55-61.
Tavakkol-Afshari, J., Brook, A. and Mousavi, S.H., 2008. Study of cytotoxicity and apoptogenic properties of saffron extract in human cancer lines. Food and Chemical Toxicology 46: 3443-3447.
Zhang, Z., Li, D., Wang, L., Ozkan, N., Chen, X.D., Mao, Z. and Yang, H., 2007. Optimization of ethanol-water extraction of lignans from flaxseed. Separation and Purification Technology 57: 17-24.
Zheng, W. and Wang, S.Y., 2001. Antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds in selected herbs. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 49: 5165-5170.
Assimopoulou, A.N., Sinakos, Z. and Papageorgiou, V.P., 2005. Radical scavenging activity of Crocus sativus L. extract and its bioactive constituents. Phytotherapy Research 19: 997-1000.
Bathaie, S.Z. and Mousavi, S.Z., 2010. New applications and mechanisms of action of saffron and its important ingredients. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition 50: 761-768.
Caballero-Ortega, H., Pereda-Miranda, R. and Abdullaev, F.I., 2007. HPLC quantification of major active components from 11 different saffron (Crocus sativus L.) sources. Food Chemistry 100: 1126-1131.
Chen, Y., Zhang, H., Tian, X., Zhao, C., Cai, L., Liu, Y., Jia, L., Yin, H.X. and Chen, C., 2008. Antioxidant potential of crocins and ethanol extracts of Gardenia jasminoides ELLIS and Crocus sativus L.: a relationship investigation between antioxidant activity and crocin contents. Food Chemistry 109: 484-492.
Cullere, L., San-juan, F. and Cacho, J., 2011. Characterization of aroma active compounds of Sapnish saffron by gas chromatography-olfactometry: quantitative evaluation of the most relevant aromatic compounds. Food Chemistry 127: 1866-1871.
Gharibzahedi, S.M.T., Razavi, S.H. and Mousavi, S.M., 2013. Comparison of antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities of biocolorant synthesized by Dietzia natronolimnaea HS-1 cells grown in batch, fed-batch and continuous cultures. Industrial Crops and Products 49: 10-16.
Iborra, J.O.L., Rosario, M., Anuel Canovas, M. and Rturo Manjon, A., 1992. TLC preparative purification of picrocrocin, HTCC and crocin from saffron. Journal of Food Science 57: 714-716.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO), 2003. ISO/IEC 3632:2003 spices – saffron (Crocus sativus L.). ISO copyright office, Geneva, Switzerland.
Kanakis, C.D., Daferera, D.J., Tarantilis, P.A. and Polissiou, M.G., 2004. Qualitative determination of volatile compounds and quantitative evaluation of safranal and 4-hydroxy-2,6,6-thimethyl-1-cyclo-hexene-1-carboxaldehyde (HTCC) in Greek saffron. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 52: 4515-4521.
Karimi, E., Oskoueian, E., Hendra, R. and Jaafar, H.Z.E., 2010. Evaluation of Crocus sativus L. stigma phenolic and flavonoid compounds and its antioxidant activity. Molecules 15: 6244-6256.
Knur, C. and Kapoor, H.C., 2002. Antioxidant activity ant total phenolics content of some Asian vegetables. International Journal of Food Science and Technology 37: 153-161.
Lage, M. and Cantrell, C.L., 2009. Quantification of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) metabolites crocins, picroccrocin and safranal for quality determination of the spice grown under different environmental Moroccan conditions. Scientia Horticulturae 121: 366-373.
Lozano, P., Castellar, M.R., Simancas, M.J. and Iborra, J.L., 1999. Quantitative high-performance liquid chromatographic method to analyse commercial saffron (Crocus sativus L.) products. Journal of Chromatography A 830: 477-483.
Makhlouf, H., Saksouk, M., Habib, J. and Chahine, R., 2011. Determination of antioxidant activity of saffron taken from the flower of Crocus sativus grown in Lebanon. African Journal of Biotechnology 10: 8093-8100.
Melnyk, J.P., Wang, S. and Marcone, M.F., 2010. Chemical and biological properties of the world’s most expensive spice: saffron. Food Research International 43: 1981-1989.
Montoro, P., Maldini, M., Luciani, L., Tuberoso, C.I.G., Congiu, F. and Pizza, C., 2012. Radical scavenging activity and LC-MS metabolic profiling of petals, stamens, and flowers of Crocus sativus L. Journal of Food Science 77: C893-C900.
Mozafari, M.R., Flanagan, J., Matia-Merino, L., Awati, A., Omri, A., Suntres, Z.E. and Singh, H., 2006. Recent trends in the lipid-based nanoencapsulation of antioxidants and their role in foods. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 86: 2038-2045.
Nabavi, S.M., Ebrahimzadeh, M.A., Nabavi, S.F. and Bahramian, F., 2009. In vitro antioxidant activity of Phytolacca americana berries. Pharmacologyonline 1: 81-88.
Ochiai, T., Ohno, S.H., Soeda, S.H., Tanaka, H., Shoyama, Y. and Shimeno, H., 2004. Crocin prevents the death of rat pheochromyctoma (PC-12) cells by its antioxidant effect stronger than those of ?-tocopherol. Neuroscience Letters 362: 61-64.
Ordoudi, S.A., Befani, C.D., Nenadis, N., Koliakos, G.G. and Tsimidou, M.Z., 2009. Further examination of antiradical properties of Crocus sativus stigmas extract rich in crocins. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 57: 3080-3086.
Papandreou, M.A., Kanakis, C.D., Polissiou, M.G., Efthimiopoulos, S., Cordopatis, P. and Margarity, M., 2006. Inhibitory activity on amyloid-?-aggregation and antioxidant properties of Crocus sativusstigmas extract and its crocin constituents. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 54: 8762-8768.
Pourmorad, F., Hosseinimehr, S.J. and Shahabimajd, N., 2006. Antioxidant activity, phenol and flavonoid contents of some selected Iranian medicinal plants. African Journal of Biotechnology 5: 1142-1145.
Sanchez-Vioque, R., Rodrigues-Conde, M.F., Reina-Urena, J.V., Escolano-Tercero, M.A., Herraiz-Penalver, D. and Santana-Meridas, O., 2012. In vitro antioxidant and metal chelating properties of corm, tepal and leaf from saffron (Crocus sativus L.). Industrial Crops and Products 39: 149-153.
Sariri, R., Sabbaghzadeh, R. and Poumohamad, F., 2011. In vitroantioxidant and anti-tyrosinase activity of methanol extracts from Crocus sativus flowers. Pharmacologyonline 2: 1205-1215.
Serrano-Diaz, J., Sanchez, A.M., Maggi, L., Martinez-Tome, M., Garcia-Diz, L., Murcia, M.A. and Alonso, G.L., 2012. Increasing the applications of Crocus sativus flowers as natural antioxidants. Journal of Food Science 77: C1162-C1168.
Souri, E., Amin, G., Farsam, H. and Tehrani, M., 2008. Screening of antioxidant activity and phenolic content of 24 medicinal plant extracts. DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences 16: 83-87.
Sultana, B., Anwar, F. and Ashraf, M., 2009. Effect of extraction solvent/technique on the antioxidant activity of selected medicinal plant extracts. Molecules 14: 2167-2180.
Tarantilis, P.A., Polissiou, M. and Manfait, M., 1994. Separation of picrocrocin, cis-trans-crocins and safranal of saffron using high performance liquid chromatography with photodiode-array detection. Journal of Chromatography A 664: 55-61.
Tavakkol-Afshari, J., Brook, A. and Mousavi, S.H., 2008. Study of cytotoxicity and apoptogenic properties of saffron extract in human cancer lines. Food and Chemical Toxicology 46: 3443-3447.
Zhang, Z., Li, D., Wang, L., Ozkan, N., Chen, X.D., Mao, Z. and Yang, H., 2007. Optimization of ethanol-water extraction of lignans from flaxseed. Separation and Purification Technology 57: 17-24.
Zheng, W. and Wang, S.Y., 2001. Antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds in selected herbs. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 49: 5165-5170.
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Apr 7, 2015
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