The effect of chlorophyll degradation (ECD) as qualitative antioxidant assay in eruca sativa leaves

Abstract

The antioxidant activity of a compound is a biological property whose function is to retard oxidative degradation reactions thereby reduce the rate of oxidation by one or more mechanisms such as the free radicals inhibition or metal complexation. The role of antioxidants is to protect the body's healthy cells against the oxidizing action of free radicals. This paper intends to contribute with a new qualitative way to determine the antioxidant capacity of the compounds using a fairly simple methodology. Both the effect of scavenging of free radicals (DPPH) and the effect of chlorophyll degradation (ECD) have shown that the activity was concentration dependent. The antioxidant activity by DPPH presented a variation according to the material examined. The IC50 values were 2.60x10-5 mg.mL-1 for quercetin compared to the positive standards 3.95x10-6 mg.mL-1 (trolox) and 6.29x10-6 mg.mL-1 (vitamin C). However it revealed a statistical differee oly for ?-sitosterol, showing that quercetin, trolox and vitamin C are antioxidant substances. In an analogous but qualitative way the effect of chlorophyll degradation showed similar results which evidences that this new methodology can be used for this purpose.