The study of antioxidant effects in melanins extracted from various tissues of animals

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the antioxidant effects of melanin extracts, including silkie fowl skin melanin (SS-melanin), silkie fowl comb melanin (SC-melanin), sepia ink sac melanin (SE-melanin), octopus ink sac melanin (OC-melanin) and synthetic melanin (SY-melanin). The results showed that with the addition of melanin extracts, linoleic acid peroxide significantly, decreased (p<0.05) with the increase in the irradiative time of UV and that OC-melanin had the highest efficiency on antioxidant activity (p<0.05). Melanin extract had reducing power and chelating power to Fe2+, which increased with the increase in the different melanin concentration. Therefore, it could be concluded that the antioxidant action of melanin extracts did not come from one single function, but is a result of many characteristic functions.