CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Introduction: Ilex paraguariensis is a plant with antioxidant activities, related with the presence of polyphenolic compounds. It is used to obtain the commercial product ?yerba mate?, widely consumed by population. Its fruits are often found in the commercial product but are considered a by-product, treated as waste and discarded. The objective of this work was to assess the phytochemical composition of the ripe fruits and the antioxidant and antiproliferative activities of aqueous extracts in order to study their potential value as a source of ingredients to be used in food and pharmaceutical industries. Materials and methods: Methylxanthines were determined by HPLC (Filip, Phytother. Res.12, 129, 1998). Polyphenols and anthocyanins were determined by spectrophotometry (Singleton, AJEV, 16, 144, 1965; Wrolstad, Trends Food Sci Tech, 2005). The antioxidant catalase (CAT) like activity was assayed (Carrillo, Life Sciences, 48, 517, 1991). The antiproliferative action on a lymphoma cell line (BW5147) was determined according to (Davicino, Immunopharmacol Immunotoxicol, 31, 130, 2009). Results: Data are expressed as X ± SD of the mean of three independent experiments carried out by triplicate. Student?s ?t? test for unpaired values were used to determine the levels of significance. The caffeine, theobromine and total polyphenols content were: (0.118 ± 0.001), (0.0125 ± 0.0002) and (0.717 ± 0.001) g/100g respectively (referred to dry matter). Spectrophotometric analysis showed the presence of anthocyanins (l max at 516 nm). Aqueous extracts presented a CAT like activity (maximum response: 19 ± 2 U/ml) and antiproliferative action (EC50: 158 ± 15 μg/ml). Conclusions: The results obtained in this work suggest the potential value of the fruits of I. paraguariensis for the development of novel products in the food and pharmaceutical industries.