Antiproliferative and antioxidant properties of anthocyanin-rich extract from açai

An anthocyanin-rich extract, generated from açai (AEA), was investigated for its antioxidant properties and antiproliferative activity against C-6 rat brain glioma cells and MDA-468 human breast cancer cells. AEA has an ORAC value of 2589 μmoles trolox equivalents (TE)/g dried powder and a DPPH radical-scavenging activity of 1208 μmoles TE/g, suggesting that AEA is an exceptional source of natural antioxidants. In addition, AEA remarkably suppresses proliferation of C-6 rat brain glioma cells, but has no effect on the growth of MDA-468 human breast cancer cells. Further experiments demonstrated that the AEA treatment dose-dependently inhibited the growth of C-6 rat glioma cells with an IC50 of 121 μg/ml. The DNA ladder fragmentation results indicated that AEA induced apoptosis of C-6 rat brain glioma cells. To compare açai with other anthocyanin-rich extracts, a number of berry extracts, including blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and wolfberry, were assessed for potential antiproliferative activity against C-6 rat brain glioma cells. However, none of them showed suppressing effect. The results suggest that the active antiproliferative constituents in AEA are unlikely to be anthocyanins normally found in common berries.