Amazonian palm Oenocarpus bataua ("patawa"): chemical and biological antioxidant activity--phytochemical composition.

In French Guiana, "diversity" within the Palm family is obvious since more than 75 species have been identified. Oenocarpus bataua Mart., called "patawa" is well known for its culinary uses whereas literature on its phytochemical composition and biological properties remains poor. This work deals with determining the antioxidant activity of this palm fruit and its polyphenol composition; Euterpe oleracea (açai) used as a reference. It turned out that patawa had a stronger antioxidant activity than açai in TEAC and FRAP tests. A similar activity was observed by DPPH assay whereas in ORAC and KRL tests, that açai showed an antioxidant activity respectively 2.6 and 1.5 fold higher than patawa. Polyphenolic composition, determined by UPLC/MS(n), would imply the presence of anthocyanins, condensed tannins, stilbenes and phenolic acids, well known for their biological activities. These results present patawa fruit as a new amazonian resource for cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals purposes.