Physicochemical Composition, Antioxidant Profile and Anticancer Potentialities of Chico (<em>Pachycereus Weberi</em>) and Jiotilla (<em>Escontria Chiotilla</em>) 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 entities, i.e., betalains, total phenolic, vitamin C, antioxidant activity, 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&amp;plusmn;1.95 mg L-Ascorbic acid/100g fresh sample). Moreover, chico extract resulted in a high concentration of micronutrients, i.e., potassium (517.75&amp;plusmn;16.78 mg/100 g) and zinc (2.46&amp;plusmn;0.65 mg/100 g). On the other hand, Jiotilla has a high content of biologically active pigment, i.e., betaxanthins (4.17&amp;plusmn;0.35 mg/g dry sample). The antioxidant activities of clarified extracts of chico and jiotilla were 80.01&amp;plusmn;5.10 and 280.88&amp;plusmn;7.62 (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 in CaCo-2 (49.7&amp;plusmn;0.01) and MCF-7 (45.56&amp;plusmn;0.05). Normal fibroblast cell line (NIH/3T3) was used as a control for comparison purposes. While, jiotilla extract had cytotoxicity against HepG2 (47.31&amp;plusmn;0.03) and PC-3 (53.65&amp;plusmn;0.04). These results demonstrated that Chico and jiotilla are good resources of biologically active constituents with nutraceuticals potentialities.