The Effects of Different Solvents on Phenolic, Flavonoid, Anthocyanin Contents and Free Radical Scavenging Activity on Pomegranate Juice and Seeds

Abstract

Our phytochemical investigation defined the polyphenol, anthocyanin and flavonoid content from methanolic, ethanolic 50% and watery extracts from fresh pomegranate juice and seeds with a spectrophotometric method. The antioxidant capacity was defined with the ABTS and DPPH methods. We determined the polyphenols with the Folin-Ciocalteu method, the anthocyanins with the method in Hungarian Pharmacopoeia VIII^th edition at Myrtilli fructus monography and the flavonoids with a modified method of the Romanian Pharmacopeia X^th edition Cynarae folium monography. We expressed the concentration of polyphenols in gallic acids (GA). The values indicated the following: in fruit juice, 47.57 μg GA/ml, in methanol seed extract 7 μg GA/g, the ethanol 50% and in watery seed extracts 8 μg GA/g. The definition of flavonoids indicated the following values expressed in quercetin (QE): in fruit juice 706 μg QE/ml, in methanol seed extract 416 μg QE/g, in ethanol 50% seed extract 46 μg QE/g and in watery seed extract 57 μg QE/g. The anthocyans from juice 3.95 mg/100 ml and seed 6.47 mg/100 g expressed in cyanidin-3-0-glycoside. We determined the following values with the ABTS method: the antioxidant capacity of juice is 25.40 μg/ml, in methanol seed extract 2.87 μg/ml, in ethanol seed extract 2.52 μg/ml, in watery 9.15 μg/ml. With the DPPH method, we obtained the following values: from juice 54.2 μg/ml, from methanolic extract 14.7 μg/ml, from ethanolic extract 10.58 μg/ml and watery extract 18.22 μg/ml. The received data shows the importance of pomegranate, which can be a new phytotherapeutic potential resource.