Abstract
The present work was undertaken to evaluate the antioxidant potentials (beta-carotene-linoleic acid system and 2, 2-diphenyl-1-piciylhydrazyl, DPPH, free radical scavenging assay) and bioactive components of leaves and flowers of Phlomis biloba Desf. Results show that the leaf extract yielded higher total phenolics (153.46 +/- 1.36 mu g GAE/mg extract) and flavonoid contents (53.84 +/- 0.24 mu g QE/mg extract) as compared to the flower extract which yielded 81.33 +/- 2.29 mu g GAE/mg extract and 14.86 +/- 0.21 mu g QE/mg extract, respectively. However, the flower ex tract surpassed the leaf ex tract in flavonol content (06.22 +/- 0.05 vs. 03.39 +/- 0.06 mu g RE/mg extract). The leaf extract had the strongest antioxidant potential as evaluated by DPPH (47.78 +/- 1.12 mg/mL) and beta-carotene bleaching assays (76.18 +/- 0.98%) with high correlation to flavonoid contents. The present work introduced P. biloba as a potential bio-resource for antioxidants which can be further utilised in food applications. (C) All Rights Reserved