Study on antioxidant activities of mulberry pigment in vitro

Antioxidant activities of mulberry pigment were evaluated by determining the total antioxidant capacity, inhibitory effect of lipid per-oxidation, as well as scavenging effects to ·OH, DPPH· and ABTS+, which generated by different systems. The results showed that mulberry red pigment extract had strong antioxidant activities on inhibiting to lipid per-oxidation, and scavenging to ·OH, DPPH· and ABTS+. The half inhibitory content (IC_ 50 ) expressed by anthocyanin was 18.56,77.62,35.91 and 109.33 mg·L -1 , respectively, in these four systems. The overall results suggest that the mulberry extract would be an excellent natural antioxidant and free radical scavenger.