Microwave Assisted Extraction of Polyphenols from Pithecellobium dulce Benth Fruit Peels and Evaluation of its Anticancer and Antioxidant Activity

Polyphenols are great interest in recent decades due to the potential health benefits such as protection against development of carcinoma, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases etc. Therefore, researchers and scientists have been more interested in the extraction of polyphenols from plant resources. The present study investigates the microwave-assisted extraction of polyphenols from the Pithecellobium dulce fruit peels. ANOVA pareto analysis and Response surface methodology was employed to analyse the effect of process variables on delignification. Four independent process variables such as microwave irradiation power, microwave irradiation time, pH and Liquid to solid ratio (LSR) were analysed. Microwave-assisted aqueous extraction facilitated in maximum yield of polyphenols from the fruit peels (79.18 mg GAE/g dw). The polyphenol extract exhibited potential antioxidant (IC 50 of 63.18 μg/ml) and anticancer (LD 50 of 61.3 µg/ml) activity using radical scavenging DPPH and MTT assay respectively. Therefore, our study indicates that the polyphenolics rich, biologically potent Pithecellobium dulce fruit peel extracts can be a good therapeutic and nutraceutical supplement to treat cancer and related complications. Graphical Abstract