Compositional features and biological activities of wild and commercial Moringa oleifera leaves from Guinea-Bissau

Abstract

Moringa oleifera Lam. is a nutraceutical edible plant used to fight malnutrition in developing countries. This investigation describes the nutritional, chemical and bioactive assets of wild and commercially acquired M. oleifera leaves from Guinea-Bissau. Both samples presented significant differences in the contents of almost all the analysed parameters. Carbohydrates and proteins were the major constituents of the leaves, which also showed an interesting profile of tocopherols, organic acids, unsaturated fatty acids, and phenolic compounds. The infused extract of the commercial leaf sample was more effective than other preparations against lipid peroxidation and oxidative haemolysis. In turn, higher antibacterial activity was achieved with hydroethanolic and infused extracts of the wild sample, which extracts also displayed superior antifungal activity. Overall, the commercially acquired M. oleifera leaves stand out with better quality profiles than the wild collected, which aroused interest in studying the processing methods used locally to process this functional food.