Abstract
This study appraises the antioxidant and antimicrobial attributes of various solvent extracts (absolute methanol, aqueous methanol, absolute ethanol, aqueous ethanol, absolute acetone, aqueous acetone, and deionized water) from bark, leaves and seeds of Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre. Maximum extraction yield of antioxidant components from bark (16.31%), leaves (11.42%) and seeds (21.51%) of P. pinnata was obtained using aqueous methanol (20:80). Of the extracts tested, the bark extract, obtained with aqueous methanol, exhibited greater levels of total phenolics [6.94 g GAE/100 g dry weight (DW)], total flavonoids (3.44 g CE/100 g DW), inhibition of linoleic acid peroxidation (69.23%) and DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC50 value, 3.21 μg/mL), followed by leaves and seeds extracts. Bark extract tested against a set of bacterial and fungal strains also revealed the strongest antimicrobial activity with the largest inhibition zone and lowest minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). HPLC analysis of aqueous methanol extracts from bark, leaves and seeds indicated the presence of protocatechuic, ellagic, ferulic, gallic, gentisic, 4-hydroxybenzoic and 4-hydroxycinnamic acids in bark (1.50–6.70 mg/100 g DW); sorbic, ferulic, gallic, salicylic and p-coumaric acids in leaves (1.18–4.71 mg/100 g DW); vanillic, gallic and tannic acids in seeds (0.52–0.65 mg/100 g DW) as the main phenolic acids. The present investigation concludes that the tested parts of P. pinnata, in particular the bark, have strong potential for the isolation of antioxidant and antimicrobial agents for functional food and pharmaceutical uses.
Highlights
There is much interest in the uses of plant-based natural antioxidants, especially the phenolic acids and flavonoids, because of their functional food and nutraceutical potential [1]
These trends are supported by the investigation of Siddhuraju and Becker [20], who revealed that aqueous methanol and aqueous ethanol are effective solvents to extract antioxidant compounds from plant material [20]
The current study was the first attempt revealing the variations of biological activities among bark, leaves and seeds of P. pinnata using a range of extraction solvents
Summary
There is much interest in the uses of plant-based natural antioxidants, especially the phenolic acids and flavonoids, because of their functional food and nutraceutical potential [1] Such natural substances possess anticarcinogenic activity and offer diverse health-promoting effects due to their antioxidant and radical scavenging properties [1,2]. P. pinnata such as bark, leaves, seeds, roots, flowers and stem have been utilized in the native medicine systems of different civilizations [7]. The flowers of this plant have been found to possess anti-hyperglycemic and anti-lipid peroxidation properties [8]. As a part of our systematic studies on the investigation of antioxidant and biological attributes of local medicinal plants [18,19], the present study was undertaken with the main objective to screen different parts of this potential plant for antioxidant and antimicrobial attributes and to determine their individual phenolic acid profiles using HPLC
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