We recently revealed that the papaya leaf not
only contained phenolic compounds but it also had asubstantial content of saponins, which was significantly
higher than the level of phenolic compounds (Vuong
et al., 2013). Saponins, which have been associated with
the prevention of cancer, are structurally amphiphilic,
containing hydrophilic (carbohydrate) and hydrophobic
(steroid or triterpene) moieties (Shi et al., 2004).
Papaya leaf has been traditionally consumed in folk
medicine preparations as a tea, by brewing it in hot
water. To date, previous study has reported the optimised
conditions for extracting its saponins. Ethanol
has been reported as an effective solvent for the extraction
of saponins using concentrations of 70–80% (v/v)
(Hu et al., 2012), and again, no study has extracted
saponins from papaya leaf using 80% ethanol. Therefore,
the aims of this study are to optimise conditions
for water extraction of saponins, prepare water and ethanol
saponin-enriched extracts, and test their antioxidant
capacity and antiproliferative effects of these
extracts on pancreatic cancer cell lines.