Phytochemical analyses of Ebenus haussknechtii flowers: Quantification of phenolics, antioxidants effect, and molecular docking studies

Abstract

Plants have been benefited as medicine and food since ancient times. After the discovery of spectroscopy, bioactive compounds in plants have been elucidated and have been utilized in drug development. Ebenus haussknechtii has been utilized for traditional medicine. In this study, Ebenus haussknechtii flowers were extracted in methanol and quantification of phenolics of this extract was conducted by LC-MS/MS. Antioxidant effect of E. haussknechtii flowers was carried out using DPPH free radical scavenging assay, ABTS radical cation scavenging assay, and hydroxyl radical scavenging assay. Quantitative analysis revealed that shikimic acid (0.77 mg/g extract), protocatechuic acid (0.61), catechin (0.34), hydroxybenzaldeyde (0.32) were determined as major products. Hence, the interaction of shikimic acid and DNA gyrase enzyme was calculated theoretically. Moreover, MolDock score, and binding affinity were determined as -73.64 and -5.5 kcal/mol respectively. Ebenus haussknechtii flowers displayed good antioxidant activity. In DPPH assay, the extract displayed good activity with the value of 7.27 ± 0.173 (IC50, µg/mL). Moreover, the flower extract exhibited the outstanding ABTS activity with a value of 6.62 ± 0.23 (IC50, µg/mL) in comparison to the extract BHA (7.58 ± 0.15, IC50, µg/mL).