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Onion (Allium cepa L.) peels were extracted by ethanol, hot water and subcritical water (SW) extraction and their antioxidant activities were evaluated. Extraction yields of SW extraction were 4-fold higher than ethanol extraction. However, the ethanol extraction increased the total phenolics contents (327.5 mg GAE/g extract) and flavonoids contents (183.95 mg QE/g extract) in the onion peel extract. The onion peel extracts by ethanol extraction showed greater DPPH radical scavenging activities and greater antioxidant activities determined by ferric thiocyanate assay than those by hot water extraction and SW extraction at 165°C. Antioxidant activity of onion peel extract by SW extraction at 110°C was similar to that of ethanol extraction. HPLC profiles revealed that SW extraction at lower temperature (110°C) increased the concentration of quercetin. These results demonstrated that the onion peel extracts produced by SW extraction technique have great potential as a source for useful antioxidant.

Background Although several chloroplast RNA splicing and ribosome maturation (CRM) domain-containing proteins have been characterized for intron splicing and rRNA processing during chloroplast gene expression, the functional role of a majority of CRM domain proteins in plant growth and development as well as chloroplast RNA metabolism remains largely unknown. Here, we characterized the developmental and stress response roles of a nuclear-encoded chloroplast protein harboring a single CRM domain (At4g39040), designated CFM4, in Arabidopsis thaliana . Results Analysis of CFM4-GFP fusion proteins revealed that CFM4 is localized to chloroplasts. The loss-of-function T-DNA insertion mutants for CFM4 ( cfm4 ) displayed retarded growth and delayed senescence, suggesting that CFM4 plays a role in growth and development of plants under normal growth conditions. In addition, cfm4 mutants showed retarded seed germination and seedling growth under stress conditions. No alteration in the splicing patterns of intron-containing chloroplast genes was observed in the mutant plants, but the processing of 16S and 4.5S rRNAs was abnormal in the mutant plants. Importantly, CFM4 was determined to possess RNA chaperone activity. Conclusions These results suggest that the chloroplast-targeted CFM4, one of two Arabidopsis genes encoding a single CRM domain-containing protein, harbors RNA chaperone activity and plays a role in the Arabidopsis growth and stress response by affecting rRNA processing in chloroplasts.