The potential of extracts of Caryocar villosum pulp to scavenge reactive oxygen and nitrogen species

► Caryocar villosum can be used as an easily accessible source of natural antioxidants. ► C. villosum extracts as efficient in vitro scavengers of ROS and RNS. ► Gallic and ellagic acid showed high scavenging activity against ROS and RNS. ► Phenolic compounds are efficient scavengers of ROS and RNS. Caryocar villosum (piquiá) is a native fruit from the Amazonian region, considered to be an interesting source of bioactive compounds. In this paper, five extracts of C. villosum pulp were obtained, using solvents with different polarities and their in vitro scavenging capacity against reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) was determined. Additionally, the phenolic compounds and carotenoids in each extract were identified and quantified by a high performance liquid chromatography coupled to diode array and mass spectrometer detectors (HPLC–DAD–MS/MS). The ethanol/water and water extracts, which presented the highest phenolic contents (5163 and 1745μg/g extract, respectively), with ellagic acid as the major phenolic compound, proved to have the highest ROS and RNS scavenging potential. Nevertheless, in general, ellagic acid was less effective in scavenging ROS (IC50 from 1.7 to 108μg/ml) and RNS (IC50 from 0.05 to 0.59μg/ml), when compared to gallic acid (IC50 from 0.4 to 226μg/ml for ROS and IC50 from 0.04 to 0.12μg/ml for RNS). The results obtained in the present study clearly demonstrated that the in vitro antioxidant efficiency of C. villosum extracts was closely related to their contents of phenolic compounds.