Molecules (Jun 2020)

Untargeted Characterization of Chestnut (<i>Castanea sativa</i> Mill.) Shell Polyphenol Extract: A Valued Bioresource for Prostate Cancer Cell Growth Inhibition

  • Nunzio Antonio Cacciola,
  • Andrea Cerrato,
  • Anna Laura Capriotti,
  • Chiara Cavaliere,
  • Maria D’Apolito,
  • Carmela Maria Montone,
  • Susy Piovesana,
  • Giuseppe Squillaci,
  • Gianfranco Peluso,
  • Aldo Laganà

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25122730
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 25, no. 12
p. 2730

Abstract

Read online

Chestnut seeds are used for fresh consumption and for the industrial preparation of derivatives, such as chestnut flour. During industrial processing, large amounts of by-products are generally produced, such as leaves, flowers, shells and burs. In the present study, chestnut shells were extracted by boiling water in order to obtain polyphenol-rich extracts. Moreover, for the removal or non-phenolic compounds, a separation by preparative reverse phase chromatography in ten fractions was carried out. The richest fractions in terms of phenolic content were characterized by means of untargeted high-resolution mass spectrometric analysis together with a dedicated and customized data processing workflow. A total of 243 flavonoids, phenolic acids, proanthocyanidins and ellagitannins were tentatively identified in the five richest fractions. Due its high phenolic content (450.03 µg GAE per mg of fraction), one tumor cell line (DU 145) and one normal prostate epithelial cell line (PNT2) were exposed to increasing concentration of fraction 3 dry extract for 24, 48 and 72 h. Moreover, for DU 145 cell lines, increase of apoptotic cells and perturbation of cell cycle was demonstrated for the same extract. Those outcomes suggest that chestnut industrial by-products could be potentially employed as a source of bioresources.

Keywords