Chemical, Antioxidant, and Cytotoxic Properties of Native Blue Corn Extract

Abstract

In recent years, natural products such as dietary phytoconstituents have been the focus of scientific studies for cancer prevention. Among these are polyphenols, which have shown anticancer properties. Pigmented cereals such as blue maize are a rich source of polyphenols such as anthocyanins. Therefore, the aim of this work is to determine the chemical composition and cytotoxic activity of blue maize extract in several cancer cell lines. The total polyphenol content, total anthocyanins, and antioxidant activity of 16 blue corn samples from the Mixteco race were analyzed. From these, the sample with the highest content of polyphenols, anthocyanins, and antioxidant activity was selected and its anthocyanin fraction was isolated using an amberlite column and analyzed by means of HPLC-ESI-MS. The total polyphenol content ranged from 142.8 to 203.2 mg GAE/100g. The total anthocyanin contents varied between 19.02 and 66.92 mg C3G/100g. The antioxidant activity ranged from 18.5 to 27.8 µmol TE/g. The anthocyanin profile showed eight different compounds, mainly acylated anthocyanins. Cytotoxicity of blue corn extract on cancer cell lines was determined at concentrations of 100 and 500 µg/mL using the SRB assay. A cytotoxic effect was mainly observed on SKLU-1 and HTC-15 cell lines.