Evaluation of coriander spice as a functional food by using in vitro bioassays.

Coriander leaves and seeds are widely used as a condiment and spice. The use of roasted coriander seeds in food and beverage is very common. In this study, we investigated raw and roasted coriander seeds for their functional food quality using antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and human tumour cell proliferation inhibitory assays. The hexane and methanolic extracts of raw and roasted coriander seeds showed identical chromatographic and bioassay profiles. Chromatographic purification of the roasted seed extracts afforded tripetroselinin as the predominant component. Other isolates were petroselinic acid, 1,3-dipetroselinin, 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol, 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-O-β-d-glucopyranoside and linalool. Hexane and methanolic extracts of both raw and roasted seeds and pure isolates from them showed comparable antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities to the positive controls used in the assays, and inhibited the growth of human tumour cells AGS (gastric carcinoma), DU-145 and LNCaP (prostate carcinoma), HCT-116 (colon carcinoma), MCF-7 (breast carcinoma) and NCI-H460 (lung carcinoma) by 4-34%, respectively.