Rice kernel phenolic content and its relationship with antiradical efficiency

Plant phenolics exert beneficial effects on human health and may also prevent oxidative deterioration of food. Two field experiments were carried out for characterising phenolics in rice. The first assay was conducted in 1999 and 2000 in Beaumont, TX and included five light-brown, two purple and 10 red pericarp coloured cultivars. 'Bran colour' was highly statistically significant for both bran phenolic concentration and antiradical efficiency (p < 0.001). 'Year' and its interaction with bran colour were not significant for the analysed traits, suggesting that seasonal differences and their interactions may not affect phenolic content or antiradical efficiency. The accessions ranged from 3.1 to 45.4 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE) g(-1) bran and from 10.0 to 345.3 muM trolox equivalents (TE) g(-1) bran for total phenolic content and antiradical efficiency respectively. The light-brown bran genotypes exhibited the lowest values for phenolic content and antiradical efficiency, whereas red bran ones displayed ca 10 times higher total phenolic content and more than 50 times higher tannin content than light-brown ones. The two purple lines showed either low or high values for the studied traits. Antiradical efficiency of rice bran extracts was highly positively correlated with total phenolic content (r = 0.99***), suggesting that phenolics are the main compounds responsible for the free radical-scavenging activity in rice bran extracts. In the second field experiment (Stuttgart, AR, 2001 and Beaumont, TX, 2000), 133 coloured rice cultivars were analysed for total phenolic content in whole grain. The accessions showed a large variation for total phenolics, ranging from 0.69 to 2.74mg GAE g(-1) grain. The data confirmed previous results suggesting bran colour as the main factor affecting phenolic concentration in rice kernel and seasonal effects and their interactions as not significant. The results also confirm that within red and purple bran groups can be found the highest phenolic concentrations in rice kernel. Published in 2004 for SCI by John Wiley Sons, Ltd.