Antioxidant and chemopreventive properties of polyphenolic compounds derived from Greek legume plant extracts.

Recently, phytochemical compounds present in legumes have gained a lot of interest because they are considered to be possible chemopreventive agents. In the present study, 14 polyphenolic compounds were extracted and identified from two unique varieties of Leguminosae family plants cultivated in Greece and screened for their antioxidant and chemopreventive properties. Ten polyphenolic fractions, which are mainly mixtures of two compounds and five pure flavonoids, were isolated from the methanolic extracts of aerial plant parts of Vicia faba and Lotus edulis (Leguminosae), respectively. All of these fractions exhibited significant DPPH(*) radical scavenging capacity. Furthermore, they exerted significant protective activity against free radical-induced DNA damage. This activity was more potent against ROO(*) radical-induced DNA damage than against that induced by OH(*) radicals. Finally, they exhibited significant ability to inhibit the activity of the topoisomerase I enzyme. These results imply that the polyphenolic compounds identified in the fractions were responsible of the observed properties of the fractions and the initial extracts and indicate different mechanisms by which these phenolic compounds may act as chemopreventive agents.