Summary

Wheat bran, an important by-product of the cereal industry, is rich in potentially health--promoting phenolic compounds. The phenolics are mainly esterified to the cell wall poly-saccharides. In our previous paper, wheat bran was destarched and deproteinated by a-amylase, protease and amyloglucosidase successively and further hydrolyzed using Ba-cillus subtilis xylanases, and the enzymatic hydrolysates from wheat bran (EHWB) showed good scavenging activity in vitro. The aim of this study is to further characterize the anti-oxidant potential of EHWB against various systems, both ex vivo and in vivo, namely, rat liver microsomal lipid peroxidation systems induced by Fe2+/H2O2 and Fe 3+-adenosine diphosphate (ADP)/dihydronicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH), cop-per- and 2,2’-azo-bis(2-amidinopropane) dihydrochloride (AAPH)-induced human low-den-sity lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation systems, and alloxan-induced in vivo lipid peroxidation in mice. EHWB inhibited lipid peroxidation in rat liver microsomes induced by Fe2+/H2O2 and Fe3+-ADP/NADPH in a concentration-dependent manner with 90.3 and 87 % inhibi-tion of lipid peroxidation at 50 mg/L, respectively, which were similar to that of butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) at 20 mg/L. The antioxidant potential of EHWB at a concentratio