BIOACTIVE POTENTIAL OF CULTIVATED MENTHA ARVENSIS L. FOR PRESERVATION AND PRODUCTION OF HEALTH-ORIENTED FOOD

M. Asghar¹, M. Younas¹, B. Arshad^1,2, W. Zaman^3*, A. Asma⁶, S. Rasheed⁷, A. H. Shah⁷, F. Ullah^5,8 and S. Saqib^1,4,5*

¹Department of Biotechnology, Mohi- ud-Din Islamic University, Nerian Sharif, AJ&K, Pakistan

²Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan

³Lushan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jiangxi 332900, China

⁴State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China

⁵University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

⁶State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China

⁷Department of Biotechnology, University of Kotli Azad Jammu and Kashmir-Pakistan

⁸CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization and Ecological Restoration, Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Science, P.O Box 416, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, China

Corresponding author’s email: shangla123@gmail.com/saddamsaqib.qau@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Mentha arvensis L. is traditionally used in folk medicine, and pharmacological industry due to presence of active chemical substances. It is also valuable for food industry as additives because of the presence of antioxidant, cytotoxic, antidiabetic and antimicrobial constituents. This study is intended to examine reactive oxygen species (Cvetanović et al.) generation, lipid oxidation, cytotoxicity and antimicrobial effect of aqueous extract from M. arvensis L. prepared in various solvents i.e. fermented methanol extract (FM.E), distilled water extract (DW.E) and methanol extract (M.E). Phytochemical screening of the extract was qualitatively investigated for the isolation of alkaloids, flavonoids, fats and oils, menthol and quinones. To check the potential of extract as preservative, pH, lipid oxidation and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis was performed. Our results showed FM.E induce ROS generation, cytotoxicity and inhibit Staphylococcus aureus (4.20±0.90 mm) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3.23±0.32 mm) growth. In addition, in vivo results showed FM. E and M.E efficiently maintained chicken meat pH and reduced lipid oxidation. The presence of essential phytochemicals was responsible for inhibition of biofilm formation. FT-IR analysis revealed the presence of free OH stretching vibrations at 3878.69 cm^-1, free NH at 3459.56 cm^-1 and H-NH bond stretching 3388.02 cm^-1 groups in chicken meat which belong to M. arvensis L. extracts. These results suggest that menthol from M. arvensis L. extract is favorable food additive against resistant pathogens.

Keywords:Mentha arvensis L; Phytochemicals; ROS generation; Lipid oxidation; Antimicrobial