Characterization, antioxidant and antitumor activities of phenolic compounds from Amomum villosum Lour

Ming Zhang; Xi-Xiang Shuai; Zhi Wei; Tao-Tao Dai; Chang-Bin Wei; Ya Li; Jun-Jun He; Li-Qing Du

doi:10.3389/fnut.2024.1327164

Characterization, antioxidant and antitumor activities of phenolic compounds from Amomum villosum Lour

Front Nutr. 2024 Feb 6:11:1327164. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1327164. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Ming Zhang^#¹, Xi-Xiang Shuai^#^{1

2}, Zhi Wei², Tao-Tao Dai², Chang-Bin Wei¹, Ya Li¹, Jun-Jun He³, Li-Qing Du¹

Affiliations

¹ South Subtropical Crops Research Institute, China Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Key Laboratory of Hainan Province for Postharvest Physiology and Technology of Tropical Horticultural Products, Zhanjiang, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Resources, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
³ Zhanjiang Experimental Station, China Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Zhanjiang, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Amomum villosum Lour. (A. villosum), known as Sharen in China, is widely used for culinary and medicinal purposes due to containing a diverse set of bioactive compounds. In this study, the optimum ethanol extraction process was optimized and the composition and biological activities (antioxidant and antitumor) of five different fractions (dichloromethane, petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and H₂O) extracted from the ethanol extract of A. villosum were investigated. The results showed that the optimal extraction conditions were extraction temperature 80°C, extraction time 120 min, ethanol concentration 40% and solid-liquid ratio 1:25 g/mL. Moreover, 35 bioactive compounds were successfully identified by UPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS from five factions for the first time, including 12 phenolic acids and derivatives, 2 organic acids, 12 flavonoids and derivatives, 2 oxylipins and 7 proanthocyanidins. Among them, ethyl acetate fraction (Fr-EtOAc) exhibited the highest content of total phenolic (374.01 mg GAE/g DW) and flavonoid (93.11 mg RE/g DW), where vanillic acid, catechin, epicatechin and protocatechuic acid were the predominant phenolic compounds that accounting for 81.65% of the quantified bioactive compounds. In addition, Fr-EtOAc demonstrated excellent total antioxidant activity (IC₅₀ of DPPH and ABTS assays were 0.23, 0.08 mg/mL, respectively, and FRAP assay was 322.91 mg VCE/100 g DW) and antitumor activity (1,000 μg/mL, 79.04% inhibition rate). The results could provide guidance for the industrial production and application of A. villosum.

Keywords: Amomum villosum Lour.; UPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS; antioxidant; antitumor; phenolic compounds.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 322QN376), the Open Competition Program of Top Ten Critical Priorities of Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation for the 14th Five-Year Plan of Guangdong Province (No. 2022SDZG07), and the Key realm R&D Program of Guangdong Province (No. 2020B020221001).