The Antioxidant and DNA Protection Activity of the Tarragon’s Methanolic Extract

Abstract

For many years plants were regarded as an important source of medical materials that are used extensively for treating and/or avoiding disease. Tarragons (Artemisia dracunculus) has a long history of medicinal uses and is applied for curative purposes. The important phytochemicals (flavonoid and tannin) in the methanolic extract of Tarragon’s dried leaves were estimated qualitatively and quantitatively, and the free radical scavenging activity against hydrogen peroxide was detected. Also, the methanolic extract’s ability to protect the human genomic DNA from Tarragon’s harmful compound was theoretically detected by doing a docking study for some tannin and flavonoid compounds in the DNA. And practically by incubating the human DNA with the Tarragon’s methanolic extract. Both flavonoid and tannin were found in Tarragon’s methanolic extract with about13.4 ± 0.133 mg of quercetin equivalent/gm of flavonoid and 17.7± 2.05 mg of tannic acid equivalent/gm of tannin. Additionally, the extract’s IC50 for H2O2 scavenging activity was about 3.42 ± 0.073 mg/mL, and the Tarragon’s extract’s highest inhibition percentage was about 34.37% compared with (48.57%) for ascorbic acid. Almost the Tarragon’s section has a protective and no damaging effect on DNA. That was confirmed by the high scores of binding energy between flavonoid and tannin compounds with DNA in the docking study. That means there is no direct damaging effect of edible tarragon leaves on the human genomic DNA, which may be strongly related to the content of active phytochemicals (tannin and flavonoids) in leaves.