Coconut milk phenolics weakly attenuate oxygen-induced lethality in the anaerobe Clostridium perfringens

Clostridium perfringens is an anaerobe that is highly sensitive to molecular oxygen due to the absence of efficient enzymatic systems required to detoxify reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, anaerobes in natural and food-associated environments may encounter transient exposure to oxygen in the presence of extracellular antioxidant compounds, raising the question of whether such environmental antioxidants can influence their short-term survival during oxidative stress. This study investigated whether phenolic components present in the aqueous extract of coconut milk (AECM) could influence the survival of C. perfringens during aerobic exposure. Chemical analyses showed that AECM contained measurable phenolic compounds and exhibited free-radical scavenging activity as determined by the Folin–Ciocalteu and DPPH assays. When C. perfringens was plated under aerobic conditions, supplementation of the medium with AECM resulted in a modest but statistically significant (p = 0.012) increase (~10%) in recoverable colony-forming units compared with control plates lacking AECM. These findings suggest that extracellular antioxidant compounds present in natural substrates may transiently modulate oxidative stress experienced by anaerobes during oxygen exposure.