A Comparative Study of Antioxidant Potential of Successive Chloroform and Methanolic Extracts from Leaves of Mitragyna parvifolia

The tree Mitragyna parvifolia (Rubiaceae), commonly known as Kadamb, belongs to a small genus comprising of 10 species. The plant has been used in folklore medicine since times immemorial. It possess diverse medicinal and therapeutic properties such as analgesic, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, antiarthritic, antinociceptive, anticonvulsant etc which have been proved scientifically. The leaves were subjected to successive extraction using solvents in increasing order of polarity. Working dilutions of 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100μg/ml of successive chloroform and methanolic extracts were prepared. Similar working dilutions of the standard, L-ascorbic acid were also prepared. The dilutions of the test extracts and standard were subjected to different antioxidant assays (radical scavenging assay and reducing power assay) and for estimation of total phenolic content. The antioxidant activity for all dilutions of successive methanolic extract was found to be higher when compared to that of successive chloroform extract. The IC₅₀ values for the successive chloroform and methanolic extract were found to be >100mcg/ml and <20mcg/ml respectively whereas the total phenolic content in the successive chloroform and methanolic extract was found to be 44 and 160 mg of GAE/g of dry extract. Thus, from the results obtained it may be concluded that high levels of antioxidant activity in the successive methanolic extract may be attributed to the high phenolic content found in the same extract.