Kaustab Mukherjee, Pramathadhip Paul and Ena Ray Banerjee
Fruit of date palm (Phoenix sylvestris L.) is edible and used as an anti-geriatric, anti-oxidant ethnomedicine. In this study, three different types of date palm extracts, methanolic, acidic ethanolic and basic ethanolic were evaluated for their putative in vitro scavenging effects on reactive oxygen species (ROS) where scavenging of hydroxyl radicals (basic ethanolic>acidic ethanolic>methanolic), superoxide radicals (acidic ethanolic>basic ethanolic>methanolic), DPPH radical (acidic ethanolic>methanolic>basic ethanolic), [nitric oxide (NO)] (methanolic>acidic ethanolic>basic ethanolic) and inhibition of lipid peroxidation (basic ethanolic>acidic ethanolic> methanolic) were found to occur in a dose dependent manner. Their flavonoid and phenolic contents proved to be the source of this potent scavenging activity and showed a direct correlation with their total anti-oxidant capacity. On human embryonic kidney cell line (HEK) and murine RAW macrophages, bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced inflammation, the date palm extracts applied therapeutically, inhibit intracellular oxidative stress significantly. This reinstatement of cellular homeostasis presumably occurs via mitochondrial pathways.