Corn bract is a corn-based agricultural waste material that distributed worldwide. In present work, response surface methodology was applied to optimize the cellulase-assisted extraction of Total Flavonoids from Corn Bract (TFCB), the in vitro antioxidant and antibacterial as well as the in vivo antioxidant activities of TFCB were investigated. Results showed that the optimal conditions for TFCB extraction were as follows: Amount of cellulase, 0.4% (w/w); incubation time, 2 h; liquid-to-solid ratio, 35: 1 mL/g; ethanol concentration, 71% (v/v); TFCB yield was 1.284±0.01%, which was 25.39% higher than that of heat reflux extraction. In addition, when compared with vitamin C, TFCB showed weaker in vitro free radical-scavenging capacities, but stronger antioxidant activities in mice. Moreover, TFCB also exerted certain inhibitory effects against Gram-positive bacteria. This study will provide an evidence for the potential of comprehensive utilization of discarded corn bract.
Medicago hispida is one of the most widely distributed and commonly cultivated plants of the genus Medicago in China. It is mainly consumed as a vegetable. In this paper, the extraction, chemical composition and antimicrobial potential of the essential oil from fresh M. hispida (EOFMH) were conducted and evaluated for the first time. The extraction yield of EOFMH was found to be 0.27% and 27 compounds were identified in EOFMH by gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) with the highest level of phytol, accounting for 48.8%. EOFMH exhibited certain inhibitory effects against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans, Bacillus pumilus and Bacillus subtilis, particularly its antibacterial activity against E. coli was equivalent to that of chloramphenicol. Results obtained from present work provided strong evidence that EOFMH could be considered as a phytol-rich natural product and a new source of nature-based antibacterial agent to be applied in industry.
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