Effect of Steaming Processing on Phenolic Profiles and Cellular Antioxidant Activities of Castanea mollissima

Abstract

The intention of this study was to investigate the effect of steaming processing on phenolic profiles and antioxidant activities in chestnuts. Steaming processing at different times and temperatures depicted diverse impacts on free and bound fractions. Though, bound phenolics were stable but long time steaming at higher temperatures tended to improve the levels of phenolics, flavonoids as well as antioxidant activities in chestnut kernels, by up to 60.11% of the original value. Seven phenolic compounds including ferulic acid, chlorogenic acid, gallic acid, vanillic acid, syringate, p-coumaric acid and quercetin were found to change during thermal processes. Significant relationships (p < 0.05) were identified between total phenolics and total antioxidant activities. However, the consistency of chlorogenic acid (p < 0.01) only with cellular antioxidant activity indicated poor bio-accessibility of the phytochemicals in chestnuts. However, this situation could be partly improved by steaming. Steaming could improve the cellular accessibility of free phytochemicals, particularly, increasing the bio-accessibility by 41.96%. This study provided valuable information on dynamic changes of phenolic profiles and antioxidant activity of chestnuts under a steaming process, which could offer possible guidance for the chestnut processing industry in the future.

Phytochemical Profiles and Cellular Antioxidant Activities in Chestnut (Castanea mollissima BL.) Kernels of Five Different Cultivars

“…High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with photodiode array detector was applied in this study for phytochemical composition analyzing according to previous study [25]. Mobile phase A: milli Q water with 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid; mobile phase B: chromatographically pure methanol; column: Waters Sun FireTM C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 µm); column temperature: 30 • C; flow rate: 1.0 mL/min.…”

“…Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay was applied to this study to determine the total antioxidant ability of chestnut kernels according to previous study [25]. Fluorescein was used as fluorescence probe and 2,2'-Aazobis dihydrochloride (ABAP) was used as free radical donor in this study.…”

“…Epidemiological studies have demonstrated the significance of phytochemicals, especially phenolic compounds, to human health due to their additive and synergistic effects on radicals scavenging [7][8][9]. Recent years, more studies focused on phytochemical profiles and antioxidant activities of fruits [10][11][12][13][14][15], and also the nuts [16,17], such as walnut [18,19], pistachio [20,21], and chestnut [1,3,[22][23][24][25].…”

Comparative Study on Phytochemical Profiles and Antioxidant Capacities of Chestnuts Produced in Different Geographic Area in China

“…Various researchers have studied the phenolic profiles and antioxidant activities of chestnuts collected from various geographical regions and also explored the impact of different processing techniques on phenolic content and antioxidant capacities of chestnuts [9,[12][13][14]. A previous study reported the variation in phenolic content and flavonoids content of Chinese chestnut collected from North China to South region of China [15].…”

Content of Phenolic Compounds and Antioxidant Activity of New Gluten-Free Pasta with the Addition of Chestnut Flour

“…This is important, especially for pasta products, which are consumed immediately after cooking. Zhang et al [48] found that bound phenolics in chestnut kernels were stable. However, prolonged steaming at high temperature improved the levels of phenolics, flavonoids, as well as the antioxidant activity up to 60.11% above the original value.…”