EVALUATION OF PIGMENTS AS ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIBACTERIAL AGENTS FROM BETA VULGARIS LINN.

Abstract

Objective: The work is aimed to evaluate the health beneficial properties of (Beta vulgaris) Beetroot. Beetroot ranks among the 10 most powerful vegetable as a natural antioxidant and has a potential source of natural food colourant. The present work is therefore organized to evaluate the Total Phenolic Content (TPC), Antioxidant activity and Antibacterial activity of the Ethanolic and Methanolic extracts of Beetroot.Methods: In the present work the Total Phenolic Content was determined by using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent method of the Ethanolic and Methanolic extracts of Beetroot (Beta vulgaris). The antioxidant scavenging activity of these extracts was determined by applying three different assay methods: (1) (1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl) DPPH method, (2) Ferric thiocyanate (FTC) method and (3) Thiobarbituric acid (TBA). The antibacterial test was examined against gram positive (B. subtilis, S. aureus) and gram negative (E. coli, S. dysenteriae) bacterial strains.Results: In the present work the Methanolic extract showed greater TPC value 394.8 mg/g GAE than the Ethanolic extract 316.8 mg/g GAE. A correlation between antiradical capacities of the extracts with TPC value was clearly observed. The Methanolic extract was found to be most effective in all the methods. 50% scavenging power of the Methanolic and Ethanolic extracts were (0.129 mg/ml and 0.254 mg/ml) in DPPH method respectively. Moreover, in TBA and FTC method, both the extracts of Beetroot exhibited strong percentage inhibition ranging from 49%-62%. The results of the antibacterial test indicated that the Ethanolic and Methanolic extracts of Beetroot are significantly effective, both in Gram-negative (E. coli, S. dysenteriae) and in Gram-positive (B. subtilis, S. aureus) bacterium.Conclusion: Thus, from the above experimental observations, it can be clearly stated that the Beetroot is a promising source of natural antioxidant and antibacterial agent and definitely provides an alternative towards synthetic antioxidant because of its beneficial properties.