Antioxidant Activities of Polysaccharides from Citrus Peel

摘要

Citrus peel, which was named chenpi, has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine for many years. In this paper, the antioxidant activity of the polysaccharides from citrus peels was measured by DPPH radical scavenging assay, hydroxyl radical scavenging assay as well as ferric reducing antioxidant power assay. The result showed that the polysaccharides from citrus peels possessed significant radical scavenging activity with DPPH and *OH values (IC_(50)) of 0.388 mg/L and 0.982 mg/mL, respectively. Moreover, their ferric reducing activity at the concentration of 1.0 mg/mL (0.964 mmol/L FeSO_4) was stronger than that of BHT at the concentration of 1.0 mg/mL (0.772 mmol/L FeSO_4), which indicated that the polysaccharides from citrus peel had a higher ferric reducing activity compared to BHT. In conclusion, the polysaccharides from citrus peels possessed the significant antioxidant activity. Therefore, we propose that the polysaccharides from citrus peels can be used as an abundant source of natural free radical scavenger.