SYNERGISTIC ACTION OF THE ANTIOXIDATIVE C OMPONENTS IN ROASTED SESAMESEED OIL (MARKED ANTIOXIDATIVE ACTIVITY OF SEED OILS DEVELOPED BY ROASTING OF OIL SEEDS .2.)

To elucidate the components contributing to the strong antioxidative a ctivity of roasted sesame seed oil, the oil roasted al 230 degrees C f or 15 min was diluted with n-hexane and passed through an Amberlite XA D-7 column. Most of the antioxidative products were adsorbed and could be separated from the major oil components. These were eluted with et hyl acetate as brown products. The products were then chromatographed on silica gel column and separated from the three known antioxidative components in the oil, i.e. gamma-tocopherol, sesamol and sesamin (new ly identified as a weak antioxidant), to give ethyl acetate-eluate and methanol-eluate brown products. Each of these products, as well as th e three known antioxidative components, showed antioxidative activity, but, the activity of each alone was not so strong to explain the acti vity of the oil. Thus the synergistic effect of various combinations o f the brown methanol-eluates and the three previous known components w as examined. Synergistic effect was significantly observed when gamma- tocopherol was involved in the combinations. The highest antioxidative activity was obtained with the combination of the brown product, gamm a-tocopherol, sesamol, and sesamin. These results suggest the importan ce of the synergistic effect in the activity of roasted sesame oil.