Author(s)

Sashi Bhusan Ojha, Shaktirekha Roy, Soumya Das, Gunanidhi Dhangadamajhi

Department of Biotechnology, North Orissa University, Baripada, Odisha, India.

Background: In many coconut industries, the outer layer of thin brown skin of coconut kernel known as testa is peeled out as a byproduct. Despite the testa is rich in fat and plenty of polyphenolic compounds, it has been underutilized either as animal feed, serving as raw materials for bio-diesel production or discarded directly. Anticipating coconut testa (CT) as a natural source of multiple phyto-chemicals, its exploitation for the pharmacological activity or utilization as value added product is required which may reduce the disposal costs as well. Methods: Secondary metabolites from CT were extracted sequentially with different organic solvents based on polarity in the soxhlet apparatus followed by extraction with sterilized water. The crude dried extracts thus prepared were evaluated for qualitative screening of phytochemicals and quantitative estimation of total phenols, flavonoids and tannin content. Moreover, the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial activities were also investigated. Results: Phytochemicals screening revealed the presence of polyphenolic compounds in methanolic fraction including phenols (822.60 ± 16.36 mg/g), flavonoids (103.30 ± 9.78 mg/g) and tannin (663.50 ± 19.26 mg/g), whereas non-phenolic compounds were present in other fractions. While methanolic fraction showed invariably the highest anti-oxidant activity in multiple assay methods, non-phenolic compounds in aqueous and chloroform fractions exhibited high anti-inflammatory activity. Antimicrobial activity was observed by both phenolic and non-phenolic compounds. Conclusion: The findings of the study reveal that CT is a rich source of various polyphenolic and non-phenolic natural antioxidants, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial compounds. These findings are promising and form the basis to identify the number of active components and their characterization.

Coconut Testa, Phytochemicals, Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, Anti-Microbial, Soxhlet Extraction

Ojha, S. , Roy, S. , Das, S. and Dhangadamajhi, G. (2019) Phytochemicals Screening, Phenolic Estimation and Evaluation for Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Microbial Activities of Sequentially Soxhlet Extracted Coconut Testa. Food and Nutrition Sciences, 10, 900-922. doi: 10.4236/fns.2019.108065.