Antioxidant activity of methanol extract of pandanus fascicularis Lam

Plants are widely used in traditional and folklore medicine. Use of medicinal plants and their products are almost doubled over the last decade in developing countries and the present trend of wide spread interest in alternative therapies is well known. Pandanus fascicularis is used in traditional systems of medicine to treat varying conditions like rheumatism, fever, headache, earache and also used as antispasmodic. No evidence of scientific study is available on this plant. So the present study is aimed at investigating the invitro antioxidant activity of methanolic extract of Pandanus fascicularis. Present study is aimed at investigating the invitro antioxidant activity of methanolic extracts of leaves of Pandanus fascicularis(MEPF) by four different invitro methods. The lipid peroxidation was assayed by estimating the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) in different concentrations of MEPF on normal rat liver homogenates. The reduced glutathione (GSH) was assayed in liver homogenates of different concentrations of MEPF using the method of Ellman et.al. The nitric oxide (NO) scavenging activity and 1-1 Diphenyl,2-Picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity was measured using the methods of Sreejayan et.al and Shimada et.al. respectively using spectrophotometer. Vitamin E and normal saline were used as reference standard and control for all four invitro antioxidant measurement assays. The results showed significant antioxidant activity of MEPF in all four in vitro methods used in this study and the IC50,(the half maximal inhibitory concentration, of an inhibitor that is required for 50% inhibition of antioxidant activity) of MEPF was comparable to that of vitamin E, the reference standard compound used in this study. It is concluded that the methanolic extract of leaves of Pandanus fascicularis has significant antioxidant activity.