Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Pharmacological Sciences Volume 2013, Article ID 296236, 6 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/296236 Research Article HPLC Evaluation of Phenolic Profile, Nutritive Content, and Antioxidant Capacity of Extracts Obtained from Punica granatum Fruit Peel Sushil Kumar Middha, 1 Talambedu Usha, 2 and Veena Pande 1 1 Department of Biotechnology, Bhimtal Campus, Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand 263136, India 2 Department of Biotechnology & Biochemistry, Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women, Malleswaram, Bangalore, Karnataka 560012, India Correspondence should be addressed to Veena Pande; veena kumaun@yahoo.co.in Received 31 March 2013; Revised 22 May 2013; Accepted 22 May 2013 Academic Editor: Mustafa F. Lokhandwala Copyright © 2013 Sushil Kumar Middha et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. his study revealed polyphenolic content, nutritive content, antioxidant activity, and phenolic proile of methanol and aqueous extracts of Punica granatum peel extract. For this, extracts were screened for possible antioxidant activities by free radical scavenging activity (DPPH), hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity and ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. he total phenolics and lavonoid recovered by methanolic (MPE) and the water extract (AQPE) were ranged from 185 ± 12.45 to 298.00 ± 24.86 mg GAE (gallic acid equivalents)/gm and 23.05 ± 1.54 to 49.8 ± 2.14 quercetin (QE) mg/g, respectively. he EC 50 of herbal extracts ranged from 100 g/ml (0.38 quercetin equivalents), for AQPE, 168 g/ml (0.80 quercetin equivalents), for MPE. he phenolic proile in the methanolic extracts was investigated by chromatographic (HPLC) method. About 5 diferent lavonoids, phenolic acids, and their derivatives including quercetin (1), rutin (2), gallic acid (3), ellagic acid (4), and punicalagin as a major ellagitannin (5) have been identiied. Among both extracts, methanolic extract was the most efective. his report may be the irst to show nutritive content and correlation analysis to suggest that phenols and lavonoids might contribute the high antioxidant activity of this fruit peel and establish it as a valuable natural antioxidant source applicable in the health food industry. 1. Introduction Nature still obliges as the man’s primary source for the cure of his ailments. Research in preventive medicine showed the importance of functional nutrition in reducing the risk factor of certain chronic diseases. Innate defense system of the human body may be insuicient for the damage caused by continued oxidative stress [1]. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are, in general, considered to be cytotoxic and are implicated in the progression of cancer, inlammation, radiation injury, and aging [2]. Growing scientiic evidence has shown adverse side efects, like liver damage and mutagenesis, of syn- thetic antioxidants [3]. herefore, recently there has been an upsurge of interest in natural products as antioxidants, as they inhibit the free radical reactions and protect human body from various diseases, such as cancer and diabetes [4]. Recent studies showed that a number of plant products including polyphenolic substances (e.g., gallocatechins, delphinidin, cyanidin, gallic acid, ellagic acid, pelargonidin and sitosterol) and various plants or herbal extracts exert potent antioxidant actions, which are very well known for their healing powers [5]. he pomegranate, Punica granatum Linn.(Punicaceae family), is natively from the Himalayas in northern India to Iran, nevertheless it has been cultivated and naturalized since ancient times over the entire Mediterranean region. Over the past decade, signiicant progress has been made in estab- lishing the pharmacological mechanisms of diferent parts of pomegranate and the individual constituents responsible for them [6–9]. Previous in vivo and in vitro studies on fruit peel illustrated its role in facilitating the reversal of glucose level in diabetic rats [7, 8]. However, to date, no studies regarding the correlation between antioxidant activity and total phenols of P. granatum peels (PGP) have been conducted. herefore,