Unravelling potential biomedical applications of the edible flower Tulbaghia violacea Rivas García, Lorenzo Romero Márquez, José Manuel Navarro Hortal, María Dolores Esteban Muñoz, Adelaida Giampieri, Francesca Sumalla Cano, Sandra Battino, Maurizio Quiles Morales, José Luis Llopis González, Juan Sánchez González, Cristina Traditionally, edible flowers have been used as foods and for therapeutic purposes, today they have gained importance due to their bioactive compounds such as flavonols, anthocyanins or other phenolic compounds, which give them potential for biomedical applications. This work evaluated a methanolic extract of Tulbaghia violacea. Eleven individual phenolic compounds were found and quantified by mass spectrometry in the extract. Antioxidant activity tests (TEAC, FRAP and DPPH) and other characterization parameters were assayed (total phenolic content and total flavonoid content). In vitro studies showed antitumoral activity against ovarian tumoral cells mediated by the induction of non-dependent caspase cell death and by the activation of reactive oxygen species. The effect of the extract against features of Alzheimer disease was in vivo assayed in Caenorhabditis elegans. Tulbaghia extract led to a reduction in the 1–42 beta amyloid peptide formation and prevented oxidative stress. These results suggested that Tulbaghia violacea could be a new source of phenolic compounds for nutraceuticals and functional food development. 2026-01-26T08:27:15Z 2026-01-26T08:27:15Z 2022 journal article Rivas-García L, Romero-Márquez JM, Navarro-Hortal MD, Esteban-Muñoz A, Giampieri F, Sumalla-Cano S, Battino M, Quiles JL, Llopis J, Sánchez-González C. Unravelling potential biomedical applications of the edible flower Tulbaghia violacea. Food Chem. 2022 Jul 1;381:132096. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132096. Epub 2022 Jan 8. PMID: 35094882. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/110215 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132096 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ open access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License