Antioxidant and Whitening Activities of Fruit Development Stages in Several Pear Cultivars

Pear(Pyrus spp.) fruit contains phenolic compounds, such as chlorogenis acid, rutin, procuanidins and arbuin. These phenolic compounds were investigated for their activity as antioxidants or as coloring factors in the fruit and their products. Asian pear (Pyrus pyrifolia) is a good source of arbutin, a polyphenol, which has a whitening effect on the skin. This study was carried out to investigate the biological activities, including the total phenolic contents, antioxidant activities, and melanin synthesis inhibition of several korean pears cultivars. The total penolic contents of five pear cultivars were present in high quantities in unripe development stage. Total phenolic content of Chuwhangbae extract was higher than those of other pear cultivars regardless of development stages. But total flavonoid contents did not differ between cultivars or development stage. Arbutin, a type of phenolic compounds, has an inhibitory effect of melanogenesis. The contents of arbutin in pear cultivars was declined as fruit matured. The radical scavenging activity of the extract was also decreased that fruit gets ripe. In B16F10 mouse melanoma cells, most of the cultivars extract inhibited melanin synthesis about 50% at 100μg∙mL-1 concentration of extracts except Gamcheonbae until 90days after full bloom. From these results, we confirmed that the extract of pear have antioxidant activity and skin-whitening effects.