Abstract
The aim of this study is to evaluate the antioxidant activity, α-amylase inhibition activity, estimation of total phenolic and flavonoid content and the toxicity in ten medicinal plants Woodfordia fructicosa, Tectaria coadunate, Prunus cerasoides, Abrus precatorius, Eclipta prostrate, Poranopsis paniculata, Chenopodium album, Oroxylum indicum, Curcuma caesia, and Butea monosperma collected from Gorkha District of Nepal. Methanolic extracts of all the plants showed the presence of different phytoconstituents such as alkaloids, polyphenols, flavonoids, terpenoids, saponins, glycosides, and quinones. The highest radical scavenging was observed in methanol extract of P. cerasoides with IC50 = 7.54±0.223 µg/ml. The potency of the radical scavenging effect of P. cerasoides was about six times greater than standard ascorbic acid (39.85±0.025 µg/ml) taken. P. cerasoides showed high phenol content (805.48±0.024 mg GAE/g extract) whereas total flavonoid content varied from O. indicum (16.96±0.015 mg QE/g extract) to W. fructicosa (722.76±0.108 mg QE/g extract). The methanol extract of E. prostrate was found to be toxic against brine shrimp as shown in the LC50 value of 6.3 µg/ml. T. coadunate and A. precatorius showed effective results with an IC50 value of 80.89 and 70.29 µg/ml respectively in α-amylase inhibition test. This study provides some scientific support for traditional uses of plants for diabetes management and other ailments. Since extracts of W. fructicosa and P. cerasoides are rich sources of bioactive chemical constituents, further in-vitro and in-vivo bioactivity of these extracts need to be studied for their exact mechanism of action. Key words: Antioxidant, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), phenolic content, flavonoid content, inhibition.
Highlights
Nepal is home to more than fifty nine culturally rich ethnic and indigenous groups
DPPH free radical scavenging assay has been primarily used by various researchers as a quick, easy, reliable, and reproducible parameter in search of in vitro antioxidant activity of a pure natural compound as well as plant extracts
The results demonstrate that the total phenolic content was found high in P. cerasoides (805.48±0.024 milligrams of gallic acid equivalent (mg GAE)/g extract) and low in B. monosperma (277.39±0.108 mg GAE/g extract) while the rest have moderate values
Summary
Nepal is home to more than fifty nine culturally rich ethnic and indigenous groups. Many of them have their medical practices handed down orally from generation to generation. One approximation puts that up to 70-80% of the rural population fully depends on medicinal plants for their primary healthcare (Ghimire et al, 2011).Nepal is a country known for abundant natural resources, endowed with enough medicinal plants that have been consumed by local people since time immemorial without knowing its biological potential and chemical composition (Young and Woodside, 2001).So these medicinal plants are needed to be explored significantly in a scientific basis which would provide a new dimension to the pharmaceutical or therapeutic field Polyphenol compounds are secondary metabolites found in numerous plant species, and they are reported to have multiple functions to counteract the free radicals and inhibit different types of oxidizing enzymes (Kazeem et al, 2013)
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