Original Articles: 2011 Vol: 3 Issue: 1
Antioxidant activities of three Indian commercially available Nagakesar: An in vitro study
Abstract
The objective of the present study was to evaluate the in vitro antioxidant activity of the methanolic extract of various commercial Nagakesar available in the Indian market. The three commercially available Nagakesar used in the present study are Mesua ferrea Linn., Ochrocarpus longifolius Benth & Hook.f, and Cinnamomum wightii Meissn. The in vitro antioxidant models studied are the total antioxidant capacity by phosphomolybdenum method, 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging, superoxide anion radical scavenging and hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity. The radical scavenging activities of the three Nagakesar extracts were compared to the standard ascorbic acid and rutin incorporating the statistical linear regression equation. Among all the three Nagakesar flowers, Cinnamomum wightii was found to exhibit the highest antioxidant and potent radical scavenging activity as compared to Mesua ferrea and Ochrocarpus longifolius. A positive, significant linear relationship between antioxidant activity and total phenolic content (R2= 0.652) showed that phenolic compound were the dominant antioxidant components in the tested flower extract. In addition to the antioxidant activity the thin layer chromatography (TLC) fingerprinting and the quantitative estimation of the total phenolic (Folin-Ciocalteau method), flavonoid and flavonol content were also performed.