Air blasting as the optimal approach for the extraction of antioxidants in coral tissue

In order to accurately measure the antioxidant capacity in corals, it is essential to optimally extract antioxidants from coral tissue. Here, we compared the two most commonly used methods for coral tissue extraction, air blasting (similar to Water-Pik method) and grinding, with or without sonication, to optimally extract antioxidants in corals. By air blasting, the coral tissue was stripped off the skeleton with a stream of compressed air into a polyethylene bag containing a known volume of buffer, whereas by grinding, both the coral tissue and skeleton were crushed using a mortar and pestle into a powder and homogenised in buffer. We found that air blasting was the most appropriate sample preparation method to use as it allowed for a more efficient and complete extraction of antioxidants from coral tissue, without the need for a second extraction step.