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Background   Cytinus  is an endophytic parasitic plant occurring in South Africa, Madagascar, and in the Mediterranean region. We have extracted the inflorescences (the only visible part of the plant, emerging from the host roots at the time of blossom) of  Cytinus hypocistis  collected in Sardinia, Italy, and explored the antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-tyrosinase, and cytotoxic activities of the extracts.    Methods  Extracts from  C. hypocistis  were prepared using increasing polarity solvents: cyclohexane, ethanol, and water. Phenolic composition were determined through spectrophotometric assays, and antioxidant activity with both electron-transfer and hydrogen-atom assays. Nine different bacterial strains, including clinical isolate methicillin-resistant  Staphylococcus aureus , were used in agar diffusion method. Cytotoxicity was tested using against the B16F10 melanoma cell line.    Results  While cyclohexane extracts where biologically inactive, ethanolic and aqueous extracts displayed an intriguing activity against several Gram-positive bacterial strains, including methicillin-resistant  S. aureus , and against the Gram-negative  Acinetobacter baumanii . Compared to the conventional antibiotics like cloxacillin, ampicillin, and oxytetracycline,  C.  hypocistis  extracts were less active in absolute terms, but displayed a wider spectrum (notably, cloxacillin and ampicillin were inactive against methicillin-resistant  S. aureus ). The ethanolic extract of  C. hypocistis  was found to be particularly rich in polyphenols, in most part hydrolysable tannins. The antioxidant activity of extracts, tested with several methodologies, resulted to be particularly high in the case of ethanolic extracts, in accordance with the composition in phenolics. In detail, ethanol extracts presented about a twofold higher activity than the water sample when tested through the oxygen radical absorbance capacity-pyrogallol red (ORAC-PYR) assay. Cytotoxicity analysis against the B16F10 melanoma cell line showed that both extracts have not significant cytotoxic effect, even at the highest dose (1000 µg/mL). Tests showed that ethanolic extracts also had the greatest tyrosinase inhibition activity, indicating that  C. hypocistis -derived substances could find application in food formulations as anti-browning agents.    Conclusions  Overall, these results point to the need of further studies on  C. hypocistis  extracts, aimed at isolating and fully characterizing its biologically active compounds.

Antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-tyrosinase properties of extracts of the Mediterranean parasitic plant Cytinus hypocistis