In vitro Evaluation of Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Activity of Aqueous Aerial Parts Extracts of Euphorbia helioscopia L.

Abstract

Antitumor, antiviral, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities were reported for Euphorbia helioscopia usage in traditional medicine. Therefore, minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations (MIC, MBC) of E. helioscopia aqueous leaf and stem extracts were evaluated by broth microdilution assay. As well as their antioxidant activity was carried out using DPPH assay. Obtained results showed that MIC values of leaf extract ranged from 0.78±0.0 mg/mL to 12.5±0.0 mg/mL and stem extract ranged from 3.125±0.0 mg/mL to 25±0.0 mg/mL. While, MBC of leaf and stem extracts had a range from 6.25±0.0 mg/mL to 50±0.0 mg/mL and 25±0.0 mg/mL to 50±0.0 mg/mL, respectively. The current study demonstrated that E. helioscopia leaf and stem extracts had antioxidant activity. One-way ANOVA test, the P values for the leaf and stem aqueous extracts were equal to 0.997 and 0.058, respectively. Consequently, both extracts showed no significant difference relative to the standard ascorbic acid (P value > 0.01). In addition, statistical analyses showed no significant differences between the tested concentrations of leaf extract and tested concentrations of ascorbic acid at P value > 0.01. The same thing was obtained for tested concentrations of stem aqueous extract, except at concentrations 7.81 and 3.91 µg/mL which showed DPPH inhibition percent 4.30±0.63 and 0.59±0.10, respectively. This indicates that E. helioscopia has potential to serve as a natural antioxidant, which makes it a promising candidate for therapeutic applications. Moreover, the positive antibacterial recorded data could potentially be used to develop potent drugs that improve the management and treatment of variety bacterial illnesses.