Abstract
The methanol extract of Ichnocarpus frutescens roots were fractionated in hexane (HF), petroleum ether (PEF), chloroform (CF), ethyl acetate (EAF) and n-butanol (BF) soluble fractions and n-butanol fraction was sub fractionated by column chromatography through Diaion HP-20 into four sub-fractions, BF-1, BF-2, BF-3 and BF-4 and the DPPH radical scavenging potential of these fractions was evaluated as per modified procedure of Cotelle et al. using BHT as a positive control. Out of eight fractions tested, BF-1 and BF-2 fractions have shown outstanding scavenging activity with inhibition of 90.590 ± 0.249 and 94.012 ± 0.340 %, respectively at the concentration of 200 µg/mL, which were comparable to that BHT having 95.023 ± 0.156 % inhibition. The remaining fractions viz BF-3, BF-4, EAF, CF, PEF and HF showed considerable antioxidant potential of 48.920 ± 0.684, 29.562 ± 0.384, 67.960 ± 1.130, 87.483 ± 0.262, 55.923 ± 0.356, 9.890 ± 0.740%, respectively at the same concentration. The sub-fractions BF-1 and BF-2 exhibited stronger antioxidant activities (IC50 values of 1 and 11.5 µg/mL, respectively) than that of known antioxidant BHT (IC50 value of 12 µg/mL).
