Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2010, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (1): 161-164.

• Research Note • Previous Articles    

Antioxidant and Cytotoxic Phenolic Compounds of Areca Nut(Areca catechu)

ZHANG Xing, WU Jiao, HAN Zhuang, MEI Wen-li* and DAI Hao-fu*   

  1. Key Laboratory of Tropical Crop Biotechnology, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Haikou 571101, P. R. China
  • Received:2008-12-23 Revised:2009-01-13 Online:2010-01-04 Published:2010-03-29
  • Contact: DAI Hao-fu. E-mail: hfdai@yahoo.cn; MEI Wen-li. E-mail: meiwenli@yahoo.com.cn
  • Supported by:

    Supported by the National Programs for Science and Technology Development of China(No.2007B127B04).

Abstract:

Areca nut, the ripe fruit of the tree Areca catechu is ascribed a number of medicinal properties. The EtOAc extract of areca nut exhibited considerable antioxidant in the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrydrazyl (DPPH) radical-scavenging assay. Bioassay-guided purification of the extract led to the isolation of 11 phenolic compounds, whose structures were determined by detailed spectroscopic analysis, including UV, IR, MS, 1D, 2D and ROESY NMR techniques. Of them, compound 1 was a new phenylpropanoid, compounds 1–9 and 11 were isolated from genus of Areca for the first time. All these compounds were examined for their antioxidant activities by the DPPH method, and the results showed that these compounds contributed to the antioxidant activity of areca nut. Compound 11 exhibited significant cytotoxic activity after examining all these compounds by using MTT assay.

Key words: Areca catechu; Phenylpropanoid; DPPH; Antioxidant activity; Cytotoxic activity