Abstract
Fruits peels are considered one of the most waste products of food industry. In this paper we attempt to get useful of these peels with low cost methods. We prepared aqueous extract of peels of apple, banana, guava, kiwi, lemon, mango, orange, papaya, pomegranate and watermelon. The anticancer activity of the extracts against different cell lines was examined using the cell viability test using MTT assay. The aqueous extract of peels of banana, pomegranate, orange and lemon showed the highest anticancer activity against the tested cell lines [pancreatic (AsPC1), breast (MCF7) human cancer cell lines colon cancer cell line (HCT116), larynx cancer cell line (HEP2) and liver cancer cell line (HEPG2)], as they have high antioxidant capacity. Beside that these peels extract contain high content of very important pharmaceutical compounds such as alkaloid, tannin, saponin, steroid, glycosidic cyanide, phytate, phenolic and flavonoid. Kiwi and watermelon peels extract did not show any anticancer activity against the different tested cell lines. Also they have the lowest antioxidant and pharmaceutical compounds content.