Antioxidant research is an important topic in the medical field as well as in the food industry. Recent research with important bioactive compounds in many plant and food materials, including peanuts and peanut plants has received much attention. The research presented here is the first step in identifying known, or novel, bioactive compounds from peanut plants that may provide the basis for value added products for the peanut industry.The objective of this work was to identify an extract of peanut plant tissues that has substantial antioxidant activity.Peanut plants were collected from a NC research farm on two separate dates. Plants were separated into various tissues, dried, and extracted with organic solvents.The solvents used were hexane, methylene chloride, acetone, and methanol.Antioxidant activity of the extracts was tested using the oxidative stability index (OSI), inhibition of the free radical action in the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) and free radical scavenging of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH•) compared with those of synthetic antioxidants.The highest antioxidant activities in the DPPH and ORAC analyses were found in the leaves and roots of the peanut plant.Extract activity increased with increasing polarity of solvents except for the methanol extract of the roots.Root extracts had higher antioxidant activity than nodules found on the roots. The methanol extracts from 500mg of leaves had an OSI value comparable with 10mg of BHT. The results among leaf extract antioxidant activity on sampling dates were variable.The results of this research suggest that there is extractable antioxidant activity in peanut plant tissues. Future isolation and identification of the specific compounds may lead to value added products along with new or novel bioactive compounds for use in the food or pharmaceutical industries.
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