A Comparative Study on Phytochemical Screening and Antioxidant Activity of Aqueous Extract from Various Parts of Moringa oleifera

Abstract

In this work, we reported a comparative study on the phytochemical screening and antioxidant activity of aqueous extract from different parts of Moringa oleifera plant, i.e. leaves, twigs, stem barks, and woods. The phytochemical content of each extract was screened through qualitative analysis and followed by quantitative analysis for the determination of total phenolic content and total flavonoid content. The results showed that different parts of Moringa oleifera plant would give different extracted natural products. Either leaf or twig part of Moringa oleifera contained alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, carbohydrates, polyphenols, proteins, amino acids, and phenolics. Meanwhile, only flavonoids, carbohydrates, and phenolics were found in the aqueous extract of the wood part of Moringa oleifera. In agreement to the phytochemical assay, the aqueous extract of leaf part of Moringa oleifera gave the highest total phenolic content (684 ± 16.7 µg GAE mL-1) and the highest flavonoid content (514 ± 26.1 µg CE mL-1) than other parts. Consequently, the leaf extract exhibited the highest antioxidant activity (64.6 ± 0.69%) which is close to the antioxidant activity of ascorbic acid (71.7 ± 0.56%) as the positive control. This finding is critical for the utilization of Moringa oleifera leaf part as the most potent source of antioxidant agents in the future.