Radical Scavenging, Total Antioxidant Capacity And Antiproliferative Activity Of Phenolic Extracts From Extra Virgin Olive Oil By Cultivar “Frantoio”

The beneficial health effects of extra virgin olive oil are due to both its high content of monounsaturated fatty acids and its high content of phenolic compounds that recently have been attracted research interest. In this context the aim of this work was to examine the in vitro antioxidant and antiproliferative activities of the phenolic extract obtained from extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) from O. europea cultivar “Frantoio” (samples 1–4), one of main variety cultivated in Italy. The total phenolic content was determined by Folin-Ciocalteu method instead the phenolic profile was obtained by HPLC coupled to DAD and mass spectrometry. EVOO extracts exhibited high antioxidant activity through different mechanisms of action and these activities are related to the phenolic content. Sample 3 demonstrated the strongest free radical scavenging activity with IC50 value of 56.5 μg/mL. The reducing ability measured with FRAP assay revealed that samples ranged from 91.3 to 156 μM Fe(II)/g. The same interesting trend was observed with Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant capacity (TEAC) value. Moreover, the virgin olive oils showed a good oxidative stability ranging between 19 to 32 hours. Antiproliferative activity evaluated by SRB assay revealed that phenolic extracts from cultivar “Frantoio” showed a strong antiproliferative activity against CORL-23 cell line with IC50 value of 14.5 and 55.9 μg/mL for sample 3 and 1, respectively, and these results are comparable to the positive control vinblastine. Overall, these results showed that EVOOs from cultivar “Frantoio”, may represent an interesting source of phenolic compounds as functional components that could be consumed in diets and/or used for the elaboration of functional food and pharmaceutical industries.