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Abstract
In recently, there has been a great interest in natural antioxidants as bioactive components of food, nutraceuticals or potential drugs against several diseases. In our study, 88 extracts from various parts of plants from European Asteraceae and Cichoriaceae were assayed for radical scavenging activity by means of DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl radical) test using the SIA (Sequential injection analysis) method developed for this purpose in our laboratory. DPPH radical scavenging activity of all tested plant extracts was evaluated according to the IC50 parameter. 29 extracts exhibited IC50 value lower than 0.1 mg/mL. The leaves of Leuzea carthamoides (IC50 = 0.046 mg/mL) were chosen as the most promising sample for a subsequent phytochemical study, which resulted in isolation of seven natural compounds, namely, 4′,5,7-trihydroxy-6-methoxyflavone (hispidulin) (1), 5, 7, 3′, 4′- tetrahydroxyflavanone (eriodictyol) (2), 3′,4′,5,7-pentahydroxy-6-methoxyflavonol (patuletin) (3), eriodictyol-7-β-glucopyranoside (4), 6-hydroxykaempferol-7-O-(6″-O-acetyl-β-D-glucopyranoside) (5), 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (6) and 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid (protocatechuic acid) (7). Antioxidant activity of the isolated compounds was evaluated by DPPH test and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) test and compared with trolox and quercetin. Both tests evaluated the flavonoid (5) as the most active antioxidant. This result was confirmed by comparison with known data concerning the structure/activity relationships of flavonoids.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a grant from Charles University (Czech Republic) No. GAUK 124/2005/B-BIO/FaF and a research project from the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic (MSM 0021620822).