Evaluation of Antioxidant Potential and Identification of Polyphenols by RP-HPLC in Michelia champaca Flowers

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the food industry and in preventive health care for the development and evaluation of natural antioxidants from medicinal plant materials. In the present work, flowers of M. champaca plants used in ayurveda and traditional purposes in India were screened for their enzymatic, non-enzymatic antioxidants with antioxidant potentials in aqueous, ethanol and methanol extracts. The Folin-Ciocalteu procedure was used to assess the total phenolic concentrations of the extracts as Gallic acid equivalents. A modified reverse phase high pressure liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) was used to obtain chromatographic profiles of the phenolic compounds in the medicinal plants. The predominant phenolic compounds detected in different extracts of the flowers were catechin, quercetin, caffeic acid and p-coumaric acid. Results indicated that high levels of phytochemicals such as phenols, flavonoids, tannins as well as antioxidant potential were found to be more in the methanol extracts of M. champaca dry flowers. It is very interesting that the levels of enzymatic antioxidants were found to be high in the aqueous extracts of M. champaca fresh flowers.