Antioxidant and antimutagenic activities of pomegranate peel extracts

Dried pomegranate peels were powdered and extracted in a Soxhlet extractor with ethyl acetate (EtOAc), acetone, methanol and water for 4 h each. The dried extracts were used to determine their antioxidant capacity by the formation of phosphomolybdenum complex and antimutagenicity against the mutagenicity of sodium azide by the Ames test. All the peel extracts exhibited marked antioxidant capacity, but the water extract was the lowest. The order of antioxidant capacity varied because of differential responses at four concentrations (25, 50, 75 and 100 μg/ml) in each solvent. All the extracts decreased sodium azide mutagènicity in Salmonella typhimurium strains (TA100 and TA1535), either weakly or strongly. At 2500 μg/plate all the extracts showed strong antimutagenicity. The antimutagenicity of the water extract was followed by acetone, EtOAc and methanol extracts. The overall results showed that the pomegranate peel extracts have both antioxidant and antimutagenic properties and may be exploited as biopreservatives in food applications and neutraceuticals.