Phenolic profile, antioxidant and antiproliferative activities of diverse peanut cultivars

Many phenolic compounds serve as natural antioxidants by preventing food oxidation and oxidative stress in the body. In this study, antioxidant compounds were extracted from five peanut cultivars. Samples were evaluated for their total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, antioxidant activities using 2,2′-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) assay and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, antiproliferative activities against two colon cancer cell lines (HCT116 and HT29), and intracellular ROS generation. The peanuts rich in phenolics (185.4–300.9 mg GAE/100 g DW) and flavonoids (62.79–86.27 mg CE/100 g DW), and has relative good antioxidant capability (DPPH, 6.65–9.45 μmol Trolox/g DW and FRAP, 8.80–13.6 μmol Fe (II)/g DW). The peanut extracts exhibited strong antiproliferative effect against HCT116 and HT29 with IC 50 value of 1.39–9.33 mg dry extract/ml and 1.56–7.55 mg dry extract/ml, respectively. The antiproliferative effects are partly due to the intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS) was used to characterize the phenolic profiles of peanut cultivar extract and 23 phenolic compounds were tentatively identified, most of which were flavonoids. Peanuts are rich in phenolic compounds and have antioxidant activity and antiproliferative activity, thus, it may serve as viable functional food ingredients with antioxidant potential.