THE INVESTIGATION ON TOTAL PHENOLIC CONTENT AND IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL OF DIFFERENT PLANT PARTS OF NYCTANTHES ARBOR-TRISTIS (NIGHT JASMINE)

Nyctanthes arbor-tristis (Paarijaat) is one of the important plants used in traditional medicines, mainly known for the medicinal properties of its flower and leaf. In this study, the four plant parts of Nyctanthes arbor-tristis were extracted sequentially with four solvents of decreasing polarity and investigated for antioxidant potential. The highest phenolic content was observed with flower, followed by stem, primarily by aqueous and methanolic extracts. The methanol and ethyl acetate extracts from all four plant parts showed decent antioxidant activities against DPPH free radicals, with methanolic extract of N. arbor-tristis stem showed activity as 86.9%, higher than the positive control. All the ethyl acetate extracts showed moderate to good activity (50-65%), showing that all the four plant parts have decent antioxidant potential. Further, the scavenging of the peroxide free radicals, produced during lipid per oxidation was also investigated. The methanolic extracts of flower and root, and ethyl acetate extract of stem showed almost 80% activity. The aqueous extract of leaf showed very good peroxide scavenging activity. The hexane extract of leaf showed the highest peroxide scavenging activity. The study is one step forward to establish traditional uses in modern contexts.