Radical-scavenging capacity and phenolic inventory of Colombian forest and shrub plants

Abstract

Phenolic compounds are metabolites found in majority of plants, but their content varies among species as well as depending on ecophysiological conditions. Its role in human health and disease is a recurrent research topic. As part of our study on reasonable sources of phenolics, the present work shows the results of the study within inventory purposes of a group of 25 forest and shrub plants from Fabaceae, Lauraceae, Burseraceae Bignonaceae, Piperaceae and Lauraceae families, by determining the total content of phenols and flavonoids (TPC and TFC, respectively) of extracts obtained from the aerial part, stems, bark, flowers and wood. TPC values were found to be in 30 – 500 mg GAE/g DE range, and TFC in 3 – 60 mg QE/g DE range. The highest TPC and TFC values were exhibited by the Fabaceae-derived extracts. The antioxidant capacity was evaluated by DDPH and FRAP. The IC50 values for DPPH were found to be in 5 – 100 µg/mL range, and FRAP in 10 – 300µM/g ES range, being the extracts exhibited higher antioxidant capacity to those of the species belonging to the Fabaceae and Burseraceae families, which agrees with the TFC and TPC values. Principal component analysis also correlated TPC values and antioxidant capacity. The present work is a product derived by the Project IMP-CIAS-1567 financed by Vicerrectoría de Investigaciones at UMNG – Validity 2014.