Artemisia Vulgaris: Biological Properties of a Potential Source for Cosmetics

Abstract

Artemisia vulgaris, commonly known as mugwort, has been traditionally used for the treatment of gastrointestinal and gynecological disorders. This plant has been scientifically reported to posess various biological activities such as antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. This study aimed to investigate various biological activities including antioxidant, anti-tyrosinase, anti-collagenase and cytotoxicity. The antioxidant of this plant was evaluated using DPPH assay. Tyrosinase inhibitory assay was performed with the presence of DOPA as oxidase activity while the assessment of collagenase inhibitory activity was carried out based on spectrophotometric methods. MTT assay was conducted for the investigation of cytotoxicity against L-929 fibroblast cell lines. The IC50 of DPPH free-radical scavenging activity was recorded to be 38.42 ± 6.3 µg/mL compared to that of vitamin C (2.71 ± 0.8 µg/mL). The IC50 of tyrosinase inhibitory activity was 18.1 ± 2.4 compared to that of kojic acid (51.34 ± 2.8 µg/mL). Meanwhile, the ethanolic Artemisia vulgaris leaf extracts were capable of inhibiting collagenase activity with IC50 value of 10.38 ± 4.32 µg/mL compared to that of quercetin (8.68 ± 0.84 µg/mL). The extracts exhibited a cytotoxic effect on L-929 fibroblast cells in a dose-dependent manner; however, a significant cytotoxic effect was only documented at a dose of larger than 250 µg/mL. These promising findings partially elucidated the potential of Artemisia vulgaris as a source of cosmetics but need to be further extensively investigated.