Functional Attributes and Anticancer Potentialities of Chico (Pachycereus Weberi) and Jiotilla (Escontria Chiotilla) Fruits Extract

Abstract

Mexico has a great diversity of cacti, however, many of their fruits have not been studied in greater depth. Several bioactive compounds available in cacti juices extract have demonstrated nutraceutical properties. Two cactus species are interesting for their biologically active pigments, which are chico (Pachycereus weberi (J. M. Coult.) Backeb)) and jiotilla (Escontria chiotilla (Weber) Rose)). Hence, the goal of this work was to evaluate the bioactive compounds, i.e., betalains, total phenolic, vitamin C, antioxidant, and mineral content in the extract of the above-mentioned P. weberi and E. chiotilla. Then, clarified extracts were evaluated for their antioxidant activity and cytotoxicity (cancer cell lines) potentialities. Based on the obtained results, Chico fruit extract was found to be a good source of vitamin C (27.19 ± 1.95 mg L-Ascorbic acid/100 g fresh sample). Moreover, chico extract resulted in a high concentration of micronutrients, i.e., potassium (517.75 ± 16.78 mg/100 g) and zinc (2.46 ± 0.65 mg/100 g). On the other hand, Jiotilla has a high content of biologically active pigment, i.e., betaxanthins (4.17 ± 0.35 mg/g dry sample). The antioxidant activities of clarified extracts of chico and jiotilla were 80.01 ± 5.10 and 280.88 ± 7.62 mg/100 g fresh sample (DPPH method), respectively. From the cytotoxicity perspective against cancer cell lines, i.e., CaCo-2, MCF-7, HepG2, and PC-3, the clarified extracts of chico showed cytotoxicity (%cell viability) in CaCo-2 (49.7 ± 0.01%) and MCF-7 (45.56 ± 0.05%). A normal fibroblast cell line (NIH/3T3) was used, as a control, for comparison purposes. While jiotilla extract had cytotoxicity against HepG2 (47.31 ± 0.03%) and PC-3 (53.65 ± 0.04%). These results demonstrated that Chico and jiotilla are excellent resources of biologically active constituents with nutraceuticals potentialities.

Development of New Antiproliferative Compound against Human Tumor Cells from the Marine Microalgae Nannochloropsis gaditana by Applied Proteomics

“…So, this assay has demonstrated the selective character of UCA01, showing an antiproliferative effect on the Caco-2 and HepG2 tumor lines, while it showed no effect on the EA.hy926 nontumor line ( Figure 3 ). Differences observed between Caco-2 and HepG2 in terms of effective antiproliferative concentrations are in line with recent previous reports showing differences in values obtained in these cell lines [ 67 , 68 , 69 ]. The relevance of discovering an antiproliferative protein in a microalga demonstrates the potential that microalgae have in the search for new compounds that could help humans and, of course, the potential of “Applied Proteomics” to identify them.…”

Biofunctional properties of the bioactive peptide from protein isolates of jiotilla (Escontria chiotilla) and pitaya (Stenocereus pruinosus) seeds

“…The fruits with the greatest potential to obtain these compounds are the "Jiotilla" from Escontria chiotilla and "Pitaya" from Stenocereus pruinosus. The fruits of E. chiotilla are important edible resources with anticancer properties (Sandate-Flores et al, 2020). Furthermore, pitaya has also drawn attention for its potential nutraceutical properties since it has natural pigments (betalains), vitamin C, high contents of iron and phenolic compounds, and antiproliferative activity on human cancer cell lines (García-Cruz et al, 2013Martínez et al, 2021).…”

Underutilized Mexican Plants: Screening of Antioxidant and Antiproliferative Properties of Mexican Cactus Fruit Juices

“…In order to determine the pulp’s betacyanin and betaxanthin content (µg/g, fresh weight) the spectrophotometric method described in [ 32 , 33 , 34 ] was carried out on clarified juices using a Model DR 500 spectrophotometer (Hach Lange GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany). The clarified juices samples were diluted as shown in Table S2 in 5 mL volumetric flasks using Milli-Q water.…”