ABSTRACT
The current study was designed to check the antioxidant and enzyme inhibition potential of various extracts/fractions of three selected plants. The aerial parts of Conocarpus erectus [Combretaceae], Ficus variegata [Moraceae] and Ficus maclellandii [Moraceae] were extracted with ethanol [95%] and the resulting crude extracts were partitioned with n-hexane, chloroform and n-butanol successively. Folin-Ciocalteu reagent was used to calculate the total phenolic contents, flavonoids contents were calculated with aluminum chloride while antioxidant and enzyme studies were carried out through standard protocols. All extracts/fractions contained reasonable amount of phenolic compounds ranging from 0.58-58.23mg CE/g of DW and 0.43-30.56mg GAE/g of DW. Total flavonoids were determined using rutin and quercetin standards, ranging from 2.65-18.2 mg rutin equivalent/g of dry weight and 0.92-5.41mg quercetin equivalent/g of dry weight. Antioxidant studies such as DPPH inhibition FRAP and total antioxidant capacity [TAC] was checked. The crude ethanolic extract of C. erectus showed maximum antiradical scavenging power [90.43%; IC[50]=7 micro g] and ferric reducing antioxidant power [16.5micro M eq.FeSO[4].7H[2]O], respectively while leave extract of F. variegata [chloroform] was the most active [0.6577] in TAC among other extracts of the selected medicinal plants. Butanolic leave extract of C. erectus exhibited maximum enzyme inhibition activity [91.62% with IC50 40micro g/ml] while other extracts showed significant activity. It was observed from results that all extracts/fractions of under consideration plants, exhibited significant bioactivities especially ethanolic and butanolic fractions, which may be the richest source of such type of activities