Author(s):

Radha P and J Saranya

Abstract: Ayurveda is considered to be the science of life, of longevity and holistic well-being. The use of plant compounds for pharmaceutical purposes has gradually increased in India. About 80% of the developed countries use traditional medicine, which involves compounds derived from medicinal plants. Of all the medicinal plant used in India, one of the important herb in Ayurveda, is Phyllanthus niruri, attributed to number of medicinal properties also known as stone breaker. In the present study, an effort was made to screen the free radical scavenging activity of P. niruri leaf extract under in vitro condition against a battery of free radicals such as DPPH, ABTS, H₂O₂, hydroxyl radicals and by determining its reducing property using three different extracts namely aqueous, methanol and chloroform. DPPH and ABTS scavenging activity revealed that among all the extracts, the aqueous extract exhibited strong activity while methanol and chloroform extract showed moderate scavenging activity. The hydroxyl radical scavenging was measured by studying the competition between deoxyribose and the extract for hydroxyl radicals generated from the Fe3+/Ascorbate / EDTA / H₂O₂ both in the presence and absence of the leaf extracts. The extent of TBARS formation with deoxyribose was effectively reduced in the presence of aqueous extract of the leaves while the other two extracts showed moderate activity. The ability of the extracts to effectively scavenge non-radical oxidant H₂O₂ showed that the aqueous extracts of the leaves showed better scavenging of H₂O₂ than the other two extracts. The metal reducing activity of the leaf extracts of P. niruri showed that the aqueous extract exhibited the maximum activity. Among the three extracts, the aqueous extract was most effective scavenger, followed by methanol and chloroform. The extract concentration providing 50% inhibition (IC50) was calculated from the plot of inhibition (%) against extract concentration. Ascorbic acid standard was used for comparison. Thus, the results showed that P. niruri leaf extracts exhibited antioxidants and radical scavenging activity in vitro.

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