Evaluation of antioxidant capacity of purple carrot extracts in cell cultures of rat aorta

AGUILAR-MORA, F.; PEREZ, M. B.; CASTRO, C.; CAVAGNARO, P. F.

Mendoza

Congreso; LVIII Annual Meeting of the Argentine Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Research; 2022

Sociedad Argentina de Investigaciones en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB)

In the cells, oxidative stress is produced when an excess of free radicals coincides with an insufficient amount of antioxidants. Excess of oxidative stress can lead to damage of cell components and impair normal cell functioning Dietary approaches to increase antioxidant levels include raising the consumption of fruits and vegetables with high content of antioxidant phytochemicals. Purple carrots are rich in anthocyanins, and also accumulate varying quantities of carotenoids and phenolic compounds, all with known beneficial health properties, including antioxidant activity. The present work evaluated the antioxidant capacity of purple carrot extracts with low, medium, and high anthocyanin concentration in cultures of ‘vascular smooth muscle cells’ (VSMC) isolated from rat aorta. Angiotensin II (AngII) was used as an inducing agent of oxidative stress followed by the addition of the carrot extracts (as a potential protective agent). Negative controls with AngII but without the carrot extracts were included. To estimate oxidative stress, the level of superoxide production in the cell cultures was quantified by the cytochrome C reduction assay, as a measurement of the total content of reactive oxygen species (ROS). All the carrot extracts had protective effects on the oxidative stress of the cells, exhibiting significant (p