Development of alternative medicinal sources from golden berry,bananas and carrot wastes as antioxidant,cytotoxic and antimicrobial agents

Discovering new medicinal sources from food wastes is a beneficial and valuable way instead of their disposal. Fruits and vegetables waste can be an inexpensive and readily available source of bioactive compounds to be used in pharmaceutical industries. The aim of this study is to highlight the in vitro antioxidant, cytotoxic, and antimicrobial activities of the total extracts of banana peels (Musa acuminate), carrot peels (Daucus carota) and golden berry husk (Physalis peruviana) besides evaluating their in vivo acute and chronic toxicity profiles as well as their antimutagenic activity. Also, we investigated their phenolic and flavonoid contents spectrophotometrically and by HPLC. Results showed that D. carota peels revealed the highest antioxidant activity (29.903 mg TE/g) using DPPH free radical scavenging assay. Cytotoxic outcomes (SulphoRhodamine-B method) showed that the highest cytotoxic activity of M. acuminate peels (IC₅₀: 20.7 μg/mL) was exerted on HEPG2 cell line, where D. carota peels (IC₅₀: 18.8 μg/mL) showed the highest cytotoxic activity on PC-3 cell line. In addition, pH. peruviana husk (IC₅₀: 10.5 ± 1.0 μg/mL) showed a potent cytotoxic activity on HCT-116 that is non-significant from the standard Doxorubicin (IC₅₀: 11.5 ± 0.8 μg/mL). For the antimicrobial activity (agar diffusion assay), most of the total extracts revealed notable activities against all tested pathogens relative to the standards; ciprofloxacin and ketoconazole, specially Ph. peruviana husk that showed a potent inhibitory activity (inhibition zone diameter of 29 mm.) against C. albicans even more than the standard ketoconazole (inhibition zone diameter of 28 mm.). These promising biological activities are mainly related to the high content of flavonoids and phenolic compounds identified and quantified in their total extracts. Moreover, the three extracts proved their in vivo safety on the short and long terms as well as their possible antimutagenic effect on the genotoxicity of the drug cyclophosphamide (CP) in both bone marrow cells and spermatocyte cells.