Lalrinzuali K. , Vabeiryureilai M. , Jagetia G.C.

Department of Zoology, Mizoram University, Aizawl, 796004, India
Author    Correspondence author
Genomics and Applied Biology, 2015, Vol. 6, No. 11   doi: 10.5376/gab.2015.06.0011
Received: 12 Nov., 2015    Accepted: 30 Jan., 2016    Published: 28 Mar., 2016

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Lalrinzuali K., Vabeiryureilai M., and Jagetia G.C., 2015,THE ANALYSIS OF ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND PHENOLIC CONTENTS OF SELECTED MEDICINAL PLANTS OF MIZORAM, India, Genomics and Applied Biology, 6(11): 1-12 (doi: 10.5376/gab.2015.06.0011)

The plants have been an integral part of human civilization and plants have played an important role in human healthcare since the time immemorial. The induction of oxidative stress has been a major problem as excess oxidative stress has been linked to almost all disease in humans. The present study attempted to evaluate the antioxidant potential and total phenol contents of certain medicinal plants including Schima wallichi (DC) Korth., Milletia pachycarpa Benth. stem bark, the leaves of Eleagnus caudata Schlecht, Dysoxylum gobara Buch.-Ham and the fruit of Castanopsis indica (Roxb.) A.DC. in vitro. The analysis of DPPH free radical scavenging activity has shown that chloroform and ethanol extracts of all these plants were able to scavenge free radicals in a concentration dependent manner. The maximum scavenging activity was reported for Eleagnus caudata, Milletia pachycarpa and Schima wallichi followed by Castanopsis indica and Dysoxylum gobara, which had the least activity. The ethanol extract had higher antioxidant activity than the chloroform extract. This was reflected in the total phenol contents that increased in a concentration dependent manner for both the chloroform and ethanol extracts of all plants. However, the amount of total phenols was greater in the ethanol extracts than that of chloroform extracts which were also least in Dysoxylum gobara. The antioxidant activity was directly proportional to the total phenol contents of a plant species. Our study demonstrates that all the five plants showed DPPH scavenging activity and the Schima wallichi showed highest effects as indicated by presence of higher amount of total phenols, which may have contributed to this effect.

DPPH; Total phenols; Schima wallichi; Eleagnus caudata; Castanopsis indica; Milletia pachycarpa; Dysoxylum gobara