Antioxidant capacity and Hepatoprotective effect on Ethanol-injured Liver cell of Lemon Juice concentrates and its comparison with commercial Japanese Apricot Juice concentrates

摘要

Lemon is an important crop in Southern Taiwan, and its price sometimes decreases during harvest period. So, it is necessary to develop diversified products of lemon, such as lemon juice concentrate to utilize the overproduced lemons. To obtain lemon juice concentrate, lemon was processed by squeezing, filtering and evaporating, to obtain the sticky dark black lemon juice concentrate. Lemon concentrate was obtained by 10 hours evaporation followed by separation through solid phase extraction column. Obtained lemon concentrate extract was compared with commercial Japanese apricot juice concentrate extract for its antioxidant capacity and hepatoprotective activity on ethanol injured mouse hepatocytes FL83B. Antioxidant properties observed from lemon juice concentrate, which were DPPH radical scavenging activity, trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity, reducing power, ferric reducing ability of plasma and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances assay, was higher than Japanese apricot juice concentrate. Moreover, this finding was also supported by higher total phenolic and flavonoid content found in lemon juice concentrate. Mumefural, compound reported to have bioactivity and found in Japanese apricot concentrate, was also found in lemon juice concentrate by using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry determination. In the cell culture test, 600 g/mL of lemon concentrate extract showed significant protective ability on ethanol injured cells, which was a little bit higher compared to Japanese apricot juice concentrate. This ability may be related with antioxidant properties of lemon juice concentrate contributed by its compounds, which are phenolic, flavonoid and mumefural.