Phytochemical analysis and antioxidant activity of leaf extracts of some selected plants of the family Acanthaceae

Abstract

The present era of scientific research has witnessed an enumerable amount of evidences to showcase the immense potential of medicinal plants. In the present investigation, the phytochemical analysis of Phlogacanthus pubinervius T. Anderson., Adhatoda vasica (L.) Nees,Phlogacanthus thyrsiflorus Nees, Phlogacanthus curviflorus (Wall.) Nees, and Ruellia tuberosa L. was carried out for the different plants extracted with methanol. Analysis was carried out to estimate the quantity of phenols, carbohydrates, tannins, flavonoids and proteins. The antioxidant property of these plants were analysed using DPPH method. The concentration of the plant samples required to decrease the DPPH concentration by 50% was calculated by interpolation from linear regression analysis and denoted IC50 value (µg/ml). The qualitative analysis showed the presence of alkaloids, tannins, saponins, proteins, carbohydrate and phenols in all the sample extracts. The highest amount of tannins and phenols was observed in P. thyrsiflorus. P. pubinervius (77.83%), A. vasica (74.81%), P. curviflorus (94.20%), and R. tuberosa (70.78%) which showed highest antioxidant activity of DPPH-scavenging at 150 µg/ml of methanol extract. The high percent of scavenging activities of those plants add value to their medicinal properties. The presence of the high amount of phytochemical compounds suggests that the plants have high amount of medicinal compounds and can be extensively used to extract the natural compounds.