Antioxidant activity of different extracts of dried and frozen fruits of Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill

Schisandra chinensis has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for hundreds of years. In the last decades, the pharmacological and chemical studies of this drug revealed various valuable biological and pharmacological activities, such as antihepatotoxic, antioxidant, detoxificant, anticarcinogenic, tonic and anti-inflammatory effects. The purpose of current study was to assess the antioxidant activity and phenolic profiles of different extracts (water by maceration at ambient temperature; water, 70% and 96% ethanol extracts by heat-reflux extraction at 70 degrees C) of dried and frozen fruits of Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill. Antioxidant potential of investigated extracts was determined by four most applied spectrophotometric methods, namely DPPH, ABTS, FRAP and CUPRAC. The 70% ethanol extracts of dried fruits showed the highest antioxidant activity by all of the tested methods. The highest antioxidant potential of frozen fruits was defined in water extract obtained by heat-reflux extraction at 70 degrees C. Besides, that were the extracts with highest total phenol contents, defined by Folin-Ciocalteu's assay. HPLC analysis of phenol profiles of the investigated extracts revealed the presence of chlorogenic, p-cumaric and sinapic acids. The established strong antioxidant activity of analyzed extracts of dried and frozen fruits of S. chinensis is a prerequisite for their future application as natural preservatives in different food systems.