Arabinogalactan present in the mountain celery seed extract potentiated hypolipidemic bioactivity of coexisting polyphenols in hamsters

Abstract

Context: Previously, we showed the essential oils (EO) of the mountain celery [Cryptotaenia japonica Hass (Umbelliferae)] seeds (MCS) to be a prominent hypolipidemic agent.

Objective: We hypothesized the aqueous extract (AE) of its seeds could also exhibit a comparable nutritional effect.

Materials and methods: Experiments were carried out for compositional analysis, antioxidant assay, and hypolipidaemic assay with AE in hamsters.

Results: AE contained soluble arabinogalactan (AGal) with molecular weight (MW) 878 kDa. AE also was enriched in polyphenolics and flavonoids, reaching 30.4 and 2.20 mg/100 g, respectively. AGal consisted of eight monosaccharides (in mols %), galactose (28.75), arabinose (24.84), glucose (17.91), mannose (6.93), ribose (6.03), fucose (5.83), xylose (5.30), and rhamnose (4.41), with average MW 878 kDa. In vitro, AE showed potent ferrous chelating and DPPH scavenging effects but only moderate H₂O₂ scavenging capability. In hamsters, AE exhibited promising hypolipidemic bioactivity, in particular, the HDL-C and hepatic unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) biosynthesis regarding oleic, linoleic, and arachidonic acids.

Discussion and conclusion: The presence of AGal enhanced the hypolipidemic and antioxidative bioactivity of MCS. MCS is feasibly beneficial to the hepatic de novo UFA synthesis and the hypolipidemics as evidenced by hamster model.

Keywords::

• mountain celery seeds
• aqueous extract
• LDL-C/HDL-C
• hypolipidemic
• polysaccharides
• polyphenols and flavonoids

Acknowledgment

The work was in part financially supported by Grant NSC 91- 2626-B-241-004, NSC 96-2320-B-241-006-MY3, NSC 97-2313-B-241-007-MY3 and NSC 97-2320-B-039-049-MY3 from the National Science Council, Taiwan.

Declaration of interest

All the authors do not have any conflict of interest in submitting this paper.