Vol. 8, Issue 2 (2019)

Author(s):
Usma Gangwar and Anita Choubey

Abstract:
There is a growing interest for the plant-based medicines in pharmaceutical industry. Plant derived Antioxidants have gained huge importance regarding their medicinal value. Strychnos potatorum Linn (S. potatorum) seeds are used in the Indian traditional system of medicine for the treatment of leucorrhoea, gastropathy, bronchitis, chronic diarrhoea, hepatopathy, nephropathy, gonorrhoea, strangury, renal and vesicle calculi, diabetes and eye diseases. The present study was carried out to determine the in vitro antioxidant activity and HPLC analysis of chloroform, ethanol and aqueous seeds extract of S. potatorum. Antioxidant activities of ethanolic extract of S. potatorum was evaluated by DPPH scavenging assay and quercetin was detected in extract of S. potatorumunder study by using RP-HPLC analysis. In DPPH assay, antioxidant activity was increased dose dependently when compared with standard drug ascorbic acid and IC ₅₀ value of ethanolic extract and standard was found to be 19.93 and 34.80 µg/ml. Quercetin content was highest in ethanolic extract, was quantified as 0.9286µg/ml than chloroform extract 0.6813 µg/ml and in aqueous extracts 0.3583µg/ml. Results obtained indicated that S. potatorum exhibits good potential to prevent diseases caused by the overproduction of free radicals and it might also be used as a potential source of natural antioxidant agents. Which needs to be investigated further for their medicinal and/ cosmaceutical applications.