Screening of herbal plants for inhibitory activity and extracting skin-whitening active ingredients from papaya fruit

Abstract The main theme of this research was to screen for tyrosinase inhibition from extracts of seven medicinal plants with the aim of applying their skin-whitening compounds to the cosmetic industry. Specifically, the botanical parts include Morus alba L. fruit, Pachyrhizus erosus L. fruit, Glycyrrhiza uralensis F. root, Lonicera japonica T. flower, Chrysanthemum indicum L. flower, Momordica charantia L. leaf and Carica papaya L. fruit, which extracted in safe solvents as ethanol and water. The study results indicated that the tyrosinase inhibitory was higher in the ethanol-extracted products. Meanwhile, Carica papaya had high inhibitory (54.5 ± 2.97%, second only to Glycyrrhiza uralensis) and was widely grown in Viet Nam. Hence, this fruit pulp was chosen to study the suitable extracting conditions. The optimal conditions were found, with the absolute ethanol (EtOH) solvent, solid/liquid ratio of 1:8 (g/mL), 2 times extraction per patch, each time at 50 °C for 30 minutes. The expected value of extraction yield was 22.1%, tyrosinase inhibition IC 50 = 768.9 μg/mL, antioxidation (DPPH method) IC 5 0 = 1974.5 µg/mL. .