Abstract Ecballium elaterium species are mostly used as therapeutic agents and food ingredient. The current work was designed to investigate phytochemical contents, antioxidant, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties of methanol fruits extract of Ecballium elaterium. Good antioxidant activity was observed with IC50 values of 156 ± 4 and 377 ± 6 μg/mL for DPPH and ABTS, respectively, and EC50 of 126 ± 4 µg/mL for FRAP assays, which is related with their richness in total phenolic, flavonoid and condensed tannins contents. The results of antibacterial activity showed the effectiveness of methanol extract against Bacillus cereus with value of inhibition zone diameter of 15 ± 0 mm and a MIC and MBC values of 6 ± 0 and 12 ± 0 mg/mL, respectively. The in vivo anti-inflammatory effects have been also studied by carrageenan induced rat paw edema assay and the results revealed that a dose of 75 mg/kg induced a significant inhibition of 66.4% at 2 h. FT-IR spectral data justified the presence of biological functional groups such as ─OH, C─H, C─O, C─C and C=O. These results highlighted the potential using of Ecballium elaterium fruits extract as natural antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents for food applications and for the pharmaceutical industry.

Abstract This study was designed to investigate chemical composition, the total phenolic content, flavonoid content, antioxidant activity and to analyze through FT-IR spectroscopy method the freeze-dried extract of Ecballium elaterium fruit from three different localities. The highest level of phenolic and flavonoid contents was recorded for the fruit juice from the Cap-Bon region, with 106.4 ± 0.4 mg GAE/g and 6.5 ± 0.2 mg QE/g, respectively. Antioxidant activity varied in dose-dependent manner with IC50 values for DPPH scavenging of the freeze-dried fruit juice extracts from Cap-Bon, Kef and Sidi Bouzid were 38.6 ± 0.2, 50.1 ± 0.7, and 50.7 ± 0.2 µg/mL, respectively. The results from the FRAP test showed that the freeze-dried extracts of Cap-Bon exhibited potent activity, followed by those from Kef and Sidi Bouzid. Similar trend were revealed for ABTS•+ test, with the fruit juice extract from Cap-Bon (IC50 = 0.6 ± 0.0 mg/mL). Furthermore, a good positive correlation was observed between the total phenols and three assays, especially DPPH. The freeze-dried extracts of fruit juice from Cap-Bon showed strong ability to act as antioxidants and can be considered as promising natural source of bioactive compounds. FT-IR analysis of each freeze-dried extract confirmed its richness on polyphenols and biological active functional groups.