PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING AND ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL OF PORTULACA OLERACEA LINN.

Abstract

Portulaca oleracea, an edible herb of Portulacaceae family is widely found in Bangladesh. This plant has many traditional medicinal uses and it is used to treat disorders of urinary, digestive, cardiac, hepatic, renal systems and many diseases. The goal of this research was to search antioxidant potential of crude extract of P. oleracea and its various solvent fragments (water, butanol, chloroform and n-hexane). Phytochemical screening revealed the existence of various phytochemical groups. In DPPH assay, IC50 value of the methanol extract, water, butanol, chloroform fractions were found to be 23, 25, 28 and 41µg/mL respectively. Total flavonoid content of methanol extract and water, butanol and chloroform fractions were found to be 137.72, 102.08, 88.93 and 67.83 mg of QE/gm of arid extract. Methanolic extract, butanol and chloroform fractions exhibited significant reducing power with absorption maximum 1.3121, 1.4231 and 1.4892, respectively. Total content of phenolic of methanolic extract, water, butanol, and chloroform fractions showed 176.70, 157.13, 122.84 and 70.61 mg of GAE/gm of arid extract, respectively. Methanolic extract, butanol and water fractions exhibited significant ferrous ion chelating ability with IC50 value of 25, 32 and 29 µg/mL respectively. Total tannin content of methanol extract and water, butanol, and chloroform fractions showed 140.56, 114.10, 89.14 and 41.44 mg of TAE/gm of arid extract respectively. Methanolic extract, water, butanol and chloroform fragments exhibited significant scavenging ability of nitric oxide (NO) with IC50 10, 27, 24 and 36 µg/mL respectively. Based on these findings, we can say that P. oleracea is a possible reservoir of antioxidants and it can be applied to combat oxidative damages of our body.