Moringa oleifera leaves from Brazil: Influence of seasonality, regrowth age and, region in biochemical markers and antioxidant potential

Abstract

Moringa oleifera leaves are cultivated in warm regions of Brazil for commercial ends due to their nutritional and biological properties. This study evaluated, by chemometric tools, the influence of seasonality (winter, spring, autumn, and summer), growing area in Brazil (South, Southeast, and Northeast), and regrowth age (40 and 80 days) in antioxidant potential, and biochemical markers determined by HPLC-DAD. The results obtained in the present study showed that all the parameters evaluated were affected by seasonality, regrowth age, and growing region. The content of phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity using the ABTS method was higher in samples cultivated in the southeast (59.4 mg GAE g −1 and 346 µmol TEAC g −1 , respectively). The highest antioxidant activities evaluated by DPPH and FRAP methods were obtained from leaves of the southeast and northeast. In addition, young leaves presented higher antioxidant potential and total phenolic content. The cultivation region significantly influenced the content of chlorogenic acid, isoquercitrin, and astragalin, which ranged from 4.2 to 7.2 mg g −1 , 8.0 to 10.7 mg g −1 , and 2.2 to 3.8 mg g −1 , respectively. In addition, a positive correlation between solar radiation and temperature with caffeic acid, rutin, phenolic compounds, and antioxidant assay from the DPPH method was observed. Additionally, the RGB pattern of the images of these leaves was correlated with the levels of compounds with antioxidant activity. Models generated through machine learning showed good performances, and ABTS and rutin analyses developed the best models with a coefficient of determination above 75 %. Thus, color patterns can be used to measure the antioxidant activity by the ABTS method and to determine the rutin concentration in M. oleifera leaves.