Comparison of the Anti-Oxidant, Xanthine Oxidase Inhibitory Activity and Nutritional Quality of Corn Silk (Zea Mays L.) Tea and Alcohol Tincture.

Pang, Loc Yee (2019) Comparison of the Anti-Oxidant, Xanthine Oxidase Inhibitory Activity and Nutritional Quality of Corn Silk (Zea Mays L.) Tea and Alcohol Tincture. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

With the massive production of maize crop worldwide, corn silks have become waste along with corn husk as the corn is only known to be eaten on the cob. Besides that, owing to the limited treatment of gout in which medications can possibly bring side effect, a natural alternative of xanthine oxidase inhibitor might be a better choice for treatment and prevention. A comparative study was performed to investigate the anti-oxidative, xanthine oxidase inhibitory activity and nutritional quality of corn silk (Zea mays L.) tea and tincture. Corn silk powder was extracted with water and 70% ethanol to obtain tea and tincture. The nutritional contents, namely lipid, protein and carbohydrate as well as total polyphenol content were determined and the anti-oxidative activity was determined by DPPH scavenging activity assay using ascorbic acid as positive control. In terms of biological activity, the capability of inhibiting xanthine oxidase by active ingredients in corn silk was determined using allopurinol as positive control. The results showed that in terms of nutritional value and polyphenolic content, tea and tincture did not have any significant difference. However, the tincture was found to contain higher lipid content (116.41 mg/g) than tea (7.65 mg/g). In DPPH scavenging activity, the IC50 value of tea and tincture was 1623.38 ug/mL and 1332.98 ug/mL respectively. In tea and tincture, xanthine oxidase activity was inhibited by 59.30 ± 5.40% and 65.45 ± 6.92%, respectively at 100 μg/mL. The above results can be deducted that corn silk tea is as good as tincture in nutritional content, anti-oxidative and xanthine oxidase inhibitory properties where corn silk tea can be easily obtained by just infusing corn silk with boiling water for 1½ hour. The results suggested that corn silk tea should be explored further to analyze its phytochemical content responsible for the bioactivity and the investigation on its hypouricemic potential in vivo is also recommended.