Abstract
This study aimed to determine the chemical composition of methanolic extracts of thirteen Eucalyptus species leaves cultivated in north east of Tunisia and their antioxidant activity was also investigated. Some of them were investigated for the first time. The total phenol and total condensed tannin contents varied significantly among species, E. lehmannii had the highest values. Significant difference was also found in total flavonoid contents and the highest one was observed in E. astringens. The HPLC analysis indicated that the main phenolic compounds were the flavonoid rutin in some species such as E. maidenii and acid gallic acid in other species as E. lehmanii. Different assays were used to evaluate the antioxidant activities; Total antioxidant activity test, DPPH radical scavenging, ABTS scavenging activity, reducing power, and β-carotene-linoleic acid bleaching. All these tests showed a high influence of the interspecific variation. However, all species exhibited interesting antioxidant activities, and DPPH radical scavenging was the most remarkable one whose all extracts were more active than the positive control. E. erythrocorys has the strongest activity with IC50 = 5.07 ± 0.54 µg/mL. All results confirmed that the secondary metabolites of these studied species could be used as a source of natural antioxidants.
Published Version
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