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LWT - Food Science and Technology 41 (2008) 2029e2035

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Antioxidant and antibacterial activities

of Nephelium lappaceum L. extracts
Nont Thitilertdecha a, Aphiwat Teerawutgulrag b, Nuansri Rakariyatham b,*
a
Division of Biotechnology, Graduate School, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
b
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
Received 27 June 2007; received in revised form 25 January 2008; accepted 30 January 2008

Abstract

Ether, methanolic and aqueous extracts of lyophilized rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum L.) peels and seeds were evaluated for phenolic con-
tents, antioxidant and antibacterial activities. High amounts of phenolic compounds were found in the peel extracts and the highest content was
in the methanolic fraction (542.2 mg/g dry extract). Several potential antioxidant activities, including reducing power, b-carotene bleaching,
linoleic peroxidation and free radical scavenging activity, were evaluated. The peel extracts exhibited higher antioxidant activity than the
seed extracts in all methods determined (P < 0.05). The methanolic fraction was found to be the most active antioxidant as shown by their
 
50% DPPH inhibition concentration, 4.94 mg/mL. The results indicated this fraction exhibited greater DPPH radical scavenging activity
than BHT and ascorbic acid (0.32 g dry extract/g BHT or ascorbic acid). Antibacterial activity against eight bacterial strains was assessed by
disc diffusion and broth macrodilution methods. All peel extracts exhibited antibacterial activity against five pathogenic bacteria. The most sen-
sitive strain, Staphylococcus epidermidis, was inhibited by the methanolic extract (MIC 2.0 mg/mL).
2008 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Nephelium lappaceum; Antioxidant; Antibacterial; Phenolics

1. Introduction Plants contain a large variety of substances possessing an-

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated from both living
organisms and exogenous sources (Halliwell & Gutteridge,
1999), initiate reactions which damage biological molecules
and also play an important causative role in disease initiation
(Croft, 1999; Halliwell, 1996). Lipid oxidation, caused by free
radicals, is one of the major factors for the deterioration of
food products during processing and storage. Effective syn-
thetic antioxidants such as butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)
have been used for industrial processing but these are sus-
pected of being responsible for liver damage and carcinogen-
esis (Barlow, 1990). Recently, there is an increasing interest in
finding natural antioxidants from plant materials to replace
synthetic ones.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 66 53 943341; fax: 66 53 892277.
E-mail address: nuansri1@yahoo.com (N. Rakariyatham).
tioxidant activity, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenes,
xanthophylls, tannins and phenolics (Chanwitheesuk, Teera-
wutgulrag, & Rakariyatham, 2005). Sources of natural antiox-
idants are primarily plant phenolics that can be found in all
parts of the plant (Pratt, 1992). The plant phenolic compounds,
such as flavonoids exhibit antioxidant properties due to their
high redox potential (Cook & Samman, 1996). They also ex-
hibit a wide range of biological activity, antimicrobial activity,
anticarcinogenicity and antiproliferation, and many biological
activities can be attributed to their antioxidant properties (Ren,
Qiao, Wang, Zhu, & Zhang, 2003; Tapiero, Tew, Ba, & Mathe,
2002).
Interestingly, recent research has revealed that fruit peels
and seeds, such as grape seeds and peels (Jayaprakasha, Selvi,
& Sakariah, 2003; Jayaprakasha, Singh, & Sakariah, 2001;
Negro, Tommasi, & Miceli, 2003), pomegranate peel (Singh,
Murthy, & Jayaprakasha, 2002), sweet orange peel (Anagnos-
topoulou, Kefalas, Papageorgiou, Assimopoulou, & Boskou,

0023-6438/$34.00 2008 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.lwt.2008.01.017
2030 N. Thitilertdecha et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 41 (2008) 2029e2035
2006) and mango seed kernel (Kabuki et al., 2000) may poten-
tially possess antioxidant and/or antimicrobial properties. The
current study focuses on the possibility of using rambutan peel
and seed waste as source of low-cost natural antioxidant and
antimicrobial.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Preparation of extracts
Lyophilized peels and seeds of Nephelium lappaceum L.
were powdered and then extracted with ether (three times).
The residue was then extracted with methanol (three times)
and finally with water (three times). After filtration, the com-
bined ether and methanolic extracts were evaporated under
vacuum to absolute dryness and the aqueous extract was
lyophilized.
2.2. Determination of the total phenolic contents
The amounts of phenolic compounds in the extracts were
determined according to the method of Waterman and Mole
(1994) using FolineCiocalteu method and catechin was used
as the standard phenolic compound. The extract solution in ap-
propriate solvent (0.1 mL) was transferred to a volumetric
flask containing 7.9 mL of distilled water. After that, 0.5 mL
of FolineCiocalteu reagent was added. Three minutes later,
1.5 mL of 200 g/L sodium carbonate solution was added. Sub-
sequently, the shaken mixture was allowed to stand for 2 h at
room temperature and then measured at 760 nm. The experi-
ment was carried out in triplicate and the total phenolic com-
pounds were expressed as catechin equivalents.
2.3. Determination of antioxidative activity
2.3.1. Reducing power
The reducing power was based on the method described
previously by Yildirim, Mavi, and Kara (2001). Different con-
centrations of extracts and BHT (SigmaeAldrich GmbdH,
Germany) (50e200 mg/mL) in 1 mL of methanol were mixed
with 2.5 mL of phosphate buffer (0.2 mol/L, pH 6.6) and
2.5 mL of 10 g/L potassium ferricyanide. The mixture was
incubated at 50  C for 30 min. An aliquot (2.5 mL) of 100 g/L
trichloroacetic acid was added to the mixture, which was
then centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 min. Finally, 2.5 mL of
the upper layer solution was mixed with 2.5 mL of distilled
water and 0.5 mL of 1 g/L FeCl3, and the absorbance of the
resulting solution was measured at 700 nm.
2.3.2. b-Carotene linoleate model system
The antioxidant activity of rambutan peel and seed extracts
was determined according to the method of Jayaprakasha et al.
(2001). First, 0.2 mg of b-carotene in 1 mL of chloroform,
20 mg of linoleic acid and 200 mg of Tween-40 were mixed.
Chloroform was removed using nitrogen gas and the resulting
mixture was topped up to 50 mL using oxygenated water and
mixed well. Aliquots (5 mL) of the emulsion were pipetted
into different test tubes containing 0.2 mL of extracts in meth-
anol at different concentrations. BHT was used for compara-
tive standard. A control containing 0.2 mL of methanol and
5 mL of the above emulsion was prepared. The tubes were
placed at 50 C in the water bath. Absorbance was taken at
zero time (t 0) at 470 nm. Measurement of absorbance was
continued until the color of b-carotene disappeared in the con-
trol (t 180 min) at 15 min intervals. A mixture prepared as
above without b-carotene served as blank. The experiment
was carried out in triplicate. The antioxidant activity of the ex-
tracts was evaluated in terms of the bleaching of b-carotene
using the following equation:


Antioxidant activity 1  A0  At = A00  A0t  100
Where A0 and A00 were the absorbance measured at zero time
of the incubation for test sample and control, respectively, and
At and A0t were the absorbance measured for the test sample
and the control, respectively, after incubation for 180 min.
Extract concentration providing 50% inhibition (IC50) was cal-
culated from the graph of inhibition percentage against extract
concentration.
2.3.3. Linoleic peroxidation method
The antioxidant activity of rambutan peel and seed extracts
was based on the thiocyanate method described previously by
Jayaprakasha et al. (2001) with slight modifications. The ex-
tracts were dissolved in methanol for stock solutions. BHT
was used as comparative standard. The solution containing
stock extract solution or BHT at various concentrations in
2.5 mL of potassium phosphate buffer (0.04 mol/L, pH 7.0)
was transferred to 2.5 mL of linoleic acid emulsion containing
0.28 g Tween-40, 0.28 g linoleic acid dissolved in potassium
phosphate buffer (0.04 mol/L, pH 7.0). A control, containing
2.5 mL linoleic acid emulsion and 2.5 mL potassium phos-
phate buffer (0.04 mol/L, pH 7.0) was prepared. The mixture
was incubated at 37  C for 64 h. Aliquots (0.1 mL) were
drawn from the incubation mixture at 8-h intervals and then
mixed with 5.0 mL of 75% (v/v) ethanol, 0.1 mL of 300 g/L
ammonium thiocyanate and 0.1 mL of 20 mmol/L ferrous
chloride in 0.96 mol/L HCl and allowed to stand at room tem-
perature for 3 min. The absorbance was measured at 500 nm.
The experiments on antioxidant activity were run in triplicate
and the percent inhibition of lipid peroxidation was calculated
using the following formula:
Percent inhibition 100  A1 =A0  100
Where A0 was the absorbance of the control reaction and A1
was the absorbance in the presence of the extracts. The antiox-
idant activities were illustrated as IC50 values.

2.3.4. DPPH radical scavenging activity
The stable free radical scavenging activity was determined

by the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydracyl (DPPH ) (Sigmae
Aldrich GmbdH, Germany) method of Gulcn, Oktay, Kirecci,

and Kufrevoglu (2003). A 0.1 mmol/L DPPH solution in
methanol was prepared, and then 1 mL of this solution was
 N. Thitilertdecha et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 41 (2008) 2029e2035 2031

mixed with 3 mL of extract at different concentrations (0.78e

400 mg/mL). A control, containing 1 mL of DPPH solution
and 3 mL of methanol was prepared. The mixture was incu-
bated at room temperature for 30 min and then the absorbance

was measured at 517 nm. The ability to scavenge the DPPH

radical was calculated as percent DPPH scavenging using
the following equation:

%DPPH scavenging A0  A1 =A0   100
Where A0 was the absorbance of the control and A1 was the
absorbance of the mixture containing extracts. IC50 of refer-
ence antioxidant compounds, BHT, quercetin and ascorbic
acid (SigmaeAldrich GmbdH, Germany), were used for com-
parison to IC50 of the extracts.
2.4. Bacterial cultures
The microorganisms used in this study consisted of eight
strains of pathogenic bacteria, viz. Escherichia coli, Klebsiella
pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Vib-
rio cholerae, Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus
and Staphylococcus epidermidis. All bacterial strains were ob-
tained from the Department of Clinical Microbiology, Faculty
of Associated Medical Sciences, Chiang Mai University. The
bacteria were grown and maintained on nutrient agar slants.
The inoculated agar slants were incubated at 37  C.
2.5. Antibacterial assays
2.5.1. Disc diffusion assay
The antibacterial activity was based on disc diffusion
method (Bauer, Kirby, Sherris, & Truck, 1966) using bacterial
cell suspension whose concentration was equilibrated to a 0.5
McFarland standard. A 100 mL of each bacterial suspension
was spread on a MuellereHinton agar plate. Sterile paper
discs (6 mm diameter) were impregnated with 20 mL of each
extract dissolved in the solvent used for extraction at
125 mg/mL. The discs were allowed to dry and then placed
on the inoculated agar. Discs with the solvent used for disso-
lution were used as negative control and 10 mg streptomycin
discs were used as positive controls. The plates were incubated
at 37  C for 24 h. After incubation time, zone of inhibition was
measured. The experiment was performed in triplicate.
2.5.2. Minimum inhibition concentrations (MICs)
Minimum inhibition concentrations of the extracts were
evaluated for the bacterial strains which were determined as
being sensitive to the extracts in the disc diffusion assay.
A broth macrodilution method was used, as previously de-
scribed by Nakamura et al. (1999) with a slight modification.
Serial twofold dilutions of each extract were prepared in 10%
(v/v) dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), and 30 mL of each dilution
was added to 3 mL of MuellereHinton broth. These were
inoculated with 30 mL of culture of the test bacterial strains.
After incubation of the cultures at 37  C, the MIC value was
determined as the lowest concentration of the extract that dem-
onstrated no visible growth.
2.6. Statistical analysis
All experimental results were expressed as means  S.D.
Analysis of variance was performed by ANOVA procedures.
Correlation coefficient (R) was used to determine two vari-
ables. SPSS software was used for statistical calculations.
The results with P < 0.05 were regarded to be statistically
significant.
3. Results and discussion
In this study, phenolic content, antioxidant activity and an-
tibacterial activity of various N. lappaceum peel and seed ex-
tracts were determined. The extraction yields (g/100 g
lyophilized rambutan) from various extractants, i.e. ether,
methanol and water are presented in Table 1. The total pheno-
lic contents of the extracts were determined by FolineCiocal-
teu method. The high amounts of phenolic compounds were
found in the peel extracts in the following order: methanolic
fraction (542.2 mg/g), aqueous fraction (393.2 mg/g) and ether
fraction (293.3 mg/g) (Table 1). Although low amounts of phe-
nolic compounds were observed in the seed extracts, the meth-
anolic fraction of seed extract contained the highest phenolic
content (58.5 mg/g).
The extracts obtained by various solvent extractions were
determined for their antioxidant activities. The extracts were
investigated for the reductive capabilities by using the potas-
sium ferricyanide reduction method. The reducing ability
may serve as a significant indicator of potential antioxidant ac-
tivity (Meir, Kanner, Akiri, & Hadas, 1995). The peel and seed
extracts increased in reducing powers with increasing concen-
tration (Fig. 1) and the peel extracts exhibited higher reducing
ability than the seed extracts. The methanolic extract showed
the highest activity, followed by the aqueous and ether
extracts. When compared to the BHT, the methanolic fraction
showed significantly (P < 0.05) higher activity at all concen-
trations. Yen and Chen (1995) reported that the extract which
Table 1
Extraction yields and total phenolic content of Nephelium lappaceum L.
extracts
Extracts Extraction yield Total phenolicsf
(g/100 g)
Peel extracts
Ether 2.84 293.3  0.5c
Methanol 25.1 542.2  0.0a
Aqueous 2.06 393.2  7.4b
Seed extracts
Ether 21.2 7.4  1.8e
Methanol 4.80 58.5  0.4d
Aqueous 7.29 3.3  0.2e
Values are expressed as means  S.D.
aee
Means the column followed by different letters are significantly different
(P < 0.05).
f
Express as mg catechin/1 g dry extract.
2032 N. Thitilertdecha et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 41 (2008) 2029e2035

1.4 300
d

1.2
250
absorbance at 700 nm

1
200

IC50 ( g/mL)
0.8

150
0.6
c
0.4 100

0.2
50
b
0 a a a a
0 50 100 150 200 0
concentration ( g/mL) PE PM PA SE SM SA BHT

Fig. 1. Reducing powers of Nephelium lappaceum L. extracts. (,), (-), (:)
are the ether, methanolic and aqueous extracts of the peel; (), (6), (C) are
the ether, methanolic and aqueous extracts of the seed and (B) is BHT, butyl-
ated hydroxytoluene.
Fig. 3. Antioxidant activity of Nephelium lappaceum L. extracts in the lipid
peroxidation method. PE, PM, PA are the ether, methanolic and aqueous ex-
tracts of the peel; SE, SM, SA are the ether, methanolic and aqueous extracts
of the seed; BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene. aed means the column followed
by different letters are significantly different (P < 0.05).

showed a reducing power could function as an electron donor

and also could reduce the oxidized intermediates generated
from the lipid peroxidation reaction.
For their antioxidant activity, the extracts were determined
for their capability to delay b-carotene bleaching in the cou-
pled oxidation of b-carotene/linoleic acid model system.
Fig. 2 presents the antioxidant activity of the extracts and
BHT. Like the reducing power, high activity was found in
the peel extracts and lower activity was found in the seed
extracts. The methanolic and aqueous fractions of the peel
showed potent antioxidative activity with no statistical differ-
ence (P > 0.05) when compared to the antioxidant standard,
BHT. The total antioxidant activity by lipid peroxidation based
on ferric thiocyanate method was also evaluated. The peel ex-
tracts still showed statistically higher activity than that of the
seed extracts (P < 0.05). The antioxidant activity (IC50) of the
peel extracts is ranked as follows: methanolic fraction
(0.46 mg/mL) > aqueous fraction (0.55 mg/mL) > ether frac-
tion (0.81 mg/mL) (Fig. 3).
The free radical scavenging capacity of the extracts against

common free radicals (DPPH ) in vitro were further deter-

mined. Fig. 4 shows the dose-response curve of DPPH scav-
enging activities of the extracts. The results indicated that
the peel extracts exhibited a potential free radical scavenging
activity. The half inhibition concentration (IC50) of the radical
scavenging activity of the peel extracts were calculated and are
illustrated in Table 2. The results revealed that the extract with
the highest effective radical scavenging activity was the meth-
anolic fraction (4.94 mg/mL), followed by the aqueous extract
(9.67 mg/mL) and the ether extract (17.3 mg/mL), while lower
activities were found in the seed extracts (>400 mg/mL, data
not shown). BHT and ascorbic acid revealed less effective
activities (P < 0.05) than the methanolic extract (0.32 mg
extract/mg reference compounds) and the aqueous extract
(0.64 mg extract/mg reference compounds), while quercetin
showed stronger radical scavenging activity than these two
extracts (>1 mg extract/mg quercetin). The ether fraction

1400

d 100
1200
scavenging activity (%)

1000 80
IC50 ( g/mL)

800
60

600
40
400
c
20
200 b
a a a a
0 0
PE PM PA SE SM SA BHT 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
concentration ( g/mL)
Fig. 2. Antioxidant activity of Nephelium lappaceum L. extracts in the b-
carotene/linoleic acid system. PE, PM, PA are the ether, methanolic and aque- Fig. 4. Percent free radical scavenging activity of Nephelium lappaceum L.
ous extracts of the peel; SE, SM, SA are the ether, methanolic and aqueous extracts. (,), (-), (:) are the ether, methanolic and aqueous extracts of
extracts of the seed; BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene. aed means the column the peel; (), (6), (C) are the ether, methanolic and aqueous extracts of
followed by different letters are significantly different (P < 0.05). the seed and (B) is BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene.
 N. Thitilertdecha et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 41 (2008) 2029e2035 2033

Table 2 Table 4

The 50% inhibition concentrations (IC50) for DPPH radical scavenging activ- The Minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) values of the extracts of Nephe-
ity of Nephelium lappaceum L. peel extracts and comparison with the four ref- lium lappaceum L. peel extract
erence antioxidant compounds: BHT, quercetin, a-tocopherol, and ascorbic Microorganism MIC value
acid
Ether Methanol Aqueous
Extracts IC50 (mg/mL) mg Dry extract/mg reference compounds
extract extract extract
BHT Quercetin Ascorbic acid (mg/mL) (mg/mL) (mg/mL)
Ether 17.3  1.03 1.14  0.10 22.0  0.87 1.14  0.09 Gram negative bacteria
Methanol 4.94  0.26 0.32  0.01 6.31  0.91 0.32  0.05 Escherichia coli ND ND ND
Aqueous 9.67  0.87 0.64  0.07 12.3  1.07 0.64  0.08 Klebsiella pneumoniae ND ND ND
Values are expressed as means  S.D. Pseudomonas aeruginosa ND 62.5 125
BHT; butylated hydroxytoluene. Salmonella typhi ND ND ND
Vibrio cholerae 62.5 15.6 15.6
Gram positive bacteria
showed the lowest activity among peel extracts and antioxi- Enterococcus faecalis 62.5 15.6 62.5
dant standards. Staphylococcus aureus 31.2 31.2 31.2
Staphylococcus epidermidis 31.2 2.0 15.6
According to these results, the antioxidant activity in-
creased proportionally with the phenolic content. Correlations ND; not determined.
between phenolic content and antioxidant activity were inves-
tigated. There was a substantial correlation between the phe- pathogenic bacteria as shown in Table 3. The solvents used
nolic content versus reducing power (R2 0.96), antioxidant for control and all rambutan seed extracts did not show any ac-
activity as inhibition of b-carotene bleaching (R2 0.61), an- tivity (the results not shown). As shown in Table 3, all rambu-
tioxidant activity as thiocyanate method (R2 0.68) and free tan peel extracts exhibited a potent activity against the tested
radical scavenging activity (R2 0.96). Thus, it can be noted bacteria except E. coli, K. pneumoniae and S. typhi, and only
that the strong antioxidant properties may be attributed to the ether extract did not inhibit the growth of P. aeruginosa.
the phenolic components in the extracts. The significant corre- To compare the sensitivity of the bacterial strains to the ex-
lation between the phenolic content and the antioxidant activ- tracts, the extracts that exhibited antibacterial activity in disc
ity of various vegetable extracts has been previously observed diffusion assay were submitted to the minimum inhibition con-
(Velioglu, Mazza, Gao, & Oomah, 1998). There are many centration (MIC) test. The MIC values are illustrated in Table
types of compounds possessing antioxidant activity in higher 4. There were substantial differences between the MICs of var-
plants (Larson, 1988) and the phenolic compounds were high- ious extracts. The methanolic fraction had the most effective
lighted to be the potential antioxidants (Yu et al., 2005). The antibacterial activity. The bacterium S. epidermidis was the
fact that phenolic compounds possess a high potential to scav- most sensitive strain to the methanolic extracts of N. lappa-
enge radicals can be explained by their ability to donate ceum peel (MIC 2.0 mg/mL). These results verify the earlier
a hydrogen atom from their phenolic hydroxyl groups studies that methanol is the better solvent for more consistent
(Sawa, Nakao, Akaike, Ono, & Maeda, 1999). The inhibitory extraction of antimicrobial substances compared to the other
effects on lipid peroxidation and autoxidation of linoleic acid solvents (Ahmad, Mehmood, & Mohammad, 1998; Natarajan
have been attributed to the radical scavenging activity (Hatano et al., 2005).
et al., 2002). Similar to antioxidant activity, only fractions containing
The antibacterial activity of the peel and seed extracts of a high phenolic content of the peel extracts exhibited the anti-
N. lappaceum L. were determined against eight strains of bacterial activity. Phenolic compounds have also been reported

Table 3
Antimicrobial activity of the extracts of Nephelium lappaceum L. peel (2.5 mg/disc) against the tested microorganisms based on disc diffusion method
Microorganism Inhibition zone in diameter (mm)
Ether Methanol Aqueous Streptomycin
Gram negative bacteria
Escherichia coli e e e 16.00  0.47
Klebsiella pneumoniae e e e 15.00  1.08
Pseudomonas aeruginosa e 7.50  0.00 7.75  0.85 13.00  0.71
Salmonella typhi e e e 16.25  0.24
Vibrio cholerae 12.25  1.31 16.75  0.62 17.25  0.62 17.75  0.47
Gram positive bacteria
Enterococcus faecalis 7.50  0.41 11.75  0.47 7.25  0.62 7.25  0.47
Staphylococcus aureus 7.00  0.29 8.50  0.82 7.50  0.53 18.00  0.82
Staphylococcus epidermidis 10.00  0.20 16.50  0.83 13.25  0.34 18.25  1.25
Values are means  S.D (mm) of three separate experiments; e, no inhibition zone.
2034 N. Thitilertdecha et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 41 (2008) 2029e2035
to be responsible for antimicrobial properties. Penna et al.
(2001) isolated two antibacterial phenolic compounds, methyl
gallate (MIC 128 mg/mL) and protocatechuic acid (MIC
128 mg/mL) from Sebastiania brasiliensis. Seven antibacterial
phenolic compounds, viz. ethyl gallate, caffeic acid, dihydro-
kaempferol, eriodictyol, quercetin, 3,30 ,50 ,5,7-pentahydrofla-
vanone and ()-epicatechin were isolated from Gleditsia
sinensis Lam. (Zhou, Li, Wang, Liu, & Wu, 2007). Thus, it
may be concluded that the phenolic compounds in the N. lap-
paceum extracts could be the main components which possess
the antioxidant and antibacterial properties.
4. Conclusion
This study has demonstrated the antioxidant and antibacte-
rial activities of various extracts from N. lappaceum L. peel
and seed parts. More potential activities were found in the
peel extracts than the seed extracts. Methanol was a better sol-
vent for extraction of antioxidant and antibacterial substances
compared to the other solvents by providing high extraction
yields and also strong antioxidant and antibacterial activities.
The activities determined in the extracts could be attributed
to the phenolic components. Thus, the N. lappaceum L. peel
can be considered as an easily accessible source of natural
antioxidants and antibacterial agents. We are continuing our
efforts to identify the antioxidative and antibacterial phenolic
compounds in the methanolic fraction of N. lappaceum L. peel
by further fractionation and analysis.
Acknowledgement
The authors thank Mr. James F. Maxwell, Department of
Biology, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, for the
plant identification. This research was financially supported
by the Thailand Research Fund (TRF) through the Royal
Golden Jubilee Ph. D. Program, and from the Department of
Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Graduate School, Chiang
Mai University, Thailand.
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