Bioactivity evaluation for volatiles and water extract of commercialized star anise

Usually, it takes about a year since the harvested fresh star anise fruit (SAF) reaches the market for consumer usage, all this time with different handling processes and different storage circumstances greatly affect its quality as well as its chemical composition and biological activity.

This study investigated the chemical constituents for volatiles and water extracts of commercialized SAF, as well as, their bioactivities.

The chemical constituents were dominated by Trans-Anethole (47.16 %), estragole (14.4 %), and foeniculin (8.86 %) in the essential oils. Meanwhile, Coumarin, Apigenin, and Rosmarinic were the predominant phenolics of water extract. The result reflects a distinction of water extract to minimize mycotoxin secretion in liquid media. The SAF-volatiles were more effective in inhibiting microbial growth of the investigated bacterial and fungal strains.

Although samples were commercially collected from markets, their extracts were still capable to inhibit up to 55 % of fungal growth. The SAF water extract exhibited a moderate and selective cytotoxic effect (IC₅₀ = 114.9 μg/ml) against HepG2 cell lines compared to the low impact of essential oil (IC₅₀ = 513.8 μg/ml). Which led to the conclusion that despite the long-time span for SAF till it reaches the market, aqueous extract maintained a good ability for reducing mycotoxins-secretion from fungi grown in liquid media. This result emphasizes the role of the phenolics of water extracts' as an anti-mycotoxigenic agent.