Screening of antimutagenicity via antioxidant activity in different extracts from the flowers of Phlomis crinita Cav. ssp mauritanica munby from the center of Tunisia

Abstract

For centuries, plants have been used in traditional medicines, and there has been recent interest in the chemopreventive properties of compounds derived from plants. In the present study, we investigated the free-radical–scavenging, antioxidant, and antimutagenic potential of polar extracts from Phlomis crinita Cav. flowers. Ethyl acetate, chloroform, and methanol extracts were prepared from powdered Phlomis flowers and characterized for the presence of tannins, flavonoids, iridoids, sterols, cardiac glycosides, and anthraquinones. All the extracts showed increased activity in scavenging the ABTS free radical, but only ethyl acetate and methanol extracts were active in scavenging the superoxide anion generated by the xanthine/xanthine oxidase system. In addition, all the extracts significantly decreased the mutagenicity induced by 2-aminoanthracene in the presence of a metabolizing homogenate (S9) and methyl methane sulfonate in the absence of metabolizing system, using the Ames test with Salmonella typhimurium TA102 and TA104. The present study indicates that extracts of P. crinita flowers are a significant source of compounds with antigenotoxic and antioxidant activity (most likely phenolic compounds) and thus may be useful candidates for chemoprevention studies.

Keywords::

• Phlomis crinita
• free-radical–scavenging activity
• antioxidant activity
• antimutagenic effect
• ames test

Acknowledgment

Declaration of interest: The authors report no financial conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.