Tamarind seed coat extract restores reactive oxygen species through attenuation of glutathione level and antioxidant enzyme expression in human skin fibroblasts in response to oxidative stress.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role and mechanism of tamarind seed coat extract (TSCE) on normal human skin fibroblast CCD-1064Sk cells under normal and oxidative stress conditions induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).
METHODS: Tamarind seed coats were extracted with boiling water and then partitioned with ethyl acetate before the cell analysis. Effect of TSCE on intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), glutathione (GSH) level, antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase activity including antioxidant protein expression was investigated.
RESULTS: TSCE significantly attenuated intracellular ROS in the absence and presence of H2O2 by increasing GSH level. In the absence of H2O2, TSCE significantly enhanced SOD and catalase activity but did not affected on GPx. Meanwhile, TSCE significantly increased the protein expression of SOD and GPx in H2O2-treated cells.
CONCLUSIONS: TSCE exhibited antioxidant activities by scavenging ROS, attenuating GSH level that could protect human skin fibroblast cells from oxidative stress. Our results highlight the antioxidant mechanism of tamarind seed coat through an antioxidant enzyme system, the extract potentially benefits for health food and cosmeceutical application of tamarind seed coat.