Antioxidant Activities and Anticancer Screening of Extracts from Banana Fruit (Musa sapientum)

Banana is one of the oldest fruit crops domesticated by humans, delicious test and nutritional value has made it one of the most economically important plants in the globe. In this work, banana peels and pulps were extracted with two organic solvents as well as water. Six extracts were tested for antioxidant properties using two methods (2, 2'-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays). They were also screened for antiangiogenic activity using the rat aorta ring assay as well as antineoplasic activity using MTT assay. The correlation between antiangiogenic and antioxidant activities also was evaluated. Of the six extracts tested, 2 exhibited significant antiangiogenic activity. The hexane extracts of banana peels had the highest activity (85.32% inhibition at 100 µg/mL. Similarly, the hexane extract of banana peel had the highest cytotoxic activity and was found to inhibit the growth of colon cancer cell line HCT-116.