European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

PRELIMINARY PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING AND IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF METHANOL ETHANOL AND AQUEOUS EXTRACT OF POLYHERBAL FORMULATION (PHF)

Rahul Gopalakrishnan and Nandhakumar Elumalai*

ABSTRACT

Preliminary phytochemicals screening is the most valuable step, in the detection of the bioactive compounds present in medicinal plants and successively may lead to the discovery and development of new drugs. In the present study, three different extracts namely ethanol, methanol and aqueous of polyherbal formulation were screened for their phytochemical composition and in vitro antioxidant activity in order to relate their presence with bioactivities of the plants. Phytochemical screening tests was conducted for polyherbal formulation and found that extracts contains a variety of phytochemicals like saponins, tannins, flavonoids, terpenoids, glycosides and reducing sugars and among which there is higher level of precipitation for phenol and flavonoids. The free radical scavenging activity of the extract were determined by scavenging 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH), lipid peroxidation (LPO), nitric oxide (NO), superoxide (SOD) and hydroxyl radical scavenging activities (H2O2), reducing power and total antioxidant. compared to ethanolic and aqueous extract, methanolic extract of polyherbal formulation has a higher percentage of inhibition of DPPH radical scavenging activity (84.14%), NO scavenging activity (81.16%), superoxide and (80.68%), hydroxyl radical (75.25%), LPO (79.35%), total antioxidant activity (48 μg α-tocopherol/g) and reducing power (34 μg of ascorbic acid/g). Hence the present studies indicated that the methanolic extract held higher radical scavenging activities, reducing power, total antioxidant activity with higher levels of total flavonoids and total phenols than the ethanol and aqueous extract of polyherbal formulation.

Keywords: Medicinal plant, Polyherbal formulation, Phytochemical, in vitro antioxidant.