Evaluation of antioxidant activity, phenolic, flavonoid and ascorbic acid contents of three edible plants from Erbil/Kurdistan

Abstract

This study was designed to examine the in vitro antioxidant activity of methanol extracts of Malva sylvestris, Gundelitournefortii andEminium jaegeri and to determine their total contents of phenolics, flavonoid and ascorbic acid. The extract were screened for their possible antioxidant potentials by using in vitro –antioxidant models including total antioxidant capacity, reducing power and metal chelating activity . The total contents of phenol, flavonoid and alkaloid, ascorbic acid were quantitatively estimated in edible part of these plants which is including leaves, stem and root. Results showed that the methanol extracts of these plants exhibited significant antioxidant activity by different assays and contained significant levels of phenolics, flavonoids and ascorbic acid.The methanolic extract of Eminim jaegeri exhibited higher antioxidant, reducing power, and metal chelating activity than the methanolic extracts of other plants and has highest phenolic, flavonoid, alkaloid and ascorbic acid content. Gundeli tournefortii has shown similar activity whereas the methanolic extract of Malva sylvestris exhibited the lowest activity.Overall result showed that these plants can serve as good source of bioactive polyphenols in the human diet and can be regarded as good candidates for nutritional supplement formulation due to their high concentration of total phenol compounds, flavonoid, ascorbic acids as well as their strong antioxidant activity.