Phenol content and scavenging activity on DPPH radicals in Moringa leaves grown in Argentina

E GIORDANI; RADICE, SILVIA; ARENA, MIRIAM E; GOMEZ CASTRO F

Pretoria

Simposio; II International Symposium on Moringa; 2019

ISHS

Moringa oleifera is well known for beneficial properties with potential uses in medicine and human nutrition. In particular, the leaves contain abundant antioxidant and elevated scavenging activity on DPPH radicals that it was determined in previous works in our laboratory. At present the natural product market is increasing and so is the request of the dry leaves. The objective of this work was to study how the phenological stage conditioned these qualities. Moringa cultivation started a few years ago in several areas of Argentina. In this study we sampled leaves from plants cultivated in Buenos Aires province, an area that is considered a border zone for climatic reasons. Extraction of the antioxidants was made by methanol and determination of the phenolic compounds was through the Folin-Ciocalteau reagent expressed as tannic acid. Scavenging activity was expressed as a percentage of the control absorbance. In fact, leaves collected from plants in active vegetative growth resulted in 1.6 times superior in phenol contents respect to leaves collected from plants with flowers and small fruits. Similar results were observed in scavenging activity where leaves taken from vegetative plants were 1.8 times more than leaves taken from plants with mature fruits. These results signal the importance of field management of moringa trees to obtain seed production or leaves with nutraceutical properties.