Preliminary investigation on “Fragolino” a Citrus fruit from Calabria region: Antioxidant activity and Anti-inflammatory potential

Several investigation report the beneficial effect deriving from the consumption of fruits and vegetables. Among different fruits, Citrus contain large amount of health-promoting compound such as polyphenols. The interest in polyphenol-rich matrices pushes the food industry in developing nutraceutical formulation based on Citrus extract. In this regard Calabria is one of the most important Italian region for the production of Citrus fruits. In this work a preliminary bioactivity investigation on a novel Citrus, namely “fragolino” has been carried out. In vitro antioxidant and anti-inflammatory bioassays were carried out. We evaluated the in vitro effect of fragolino juice against inflammatory response induced by Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in J774A.1 murine macrophages. Polyphenolic compounds present in fragolino juice reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) release and other important pro-inflammatory mediators, such as nitric oxide (NO), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cycloxygenase-2 (COX-2) protein expression. Moreover, the cytoprotective haem-oxygenase-1 (OH-1) enzyme expression in LPS-stimulated J774A.1 macrophages was enhanced. Our results demonstrated that fragolino juice acts as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent in LPS-treated J774A.1 macrophages.