Title : Needles of Cupressus torulosa D. Don ex Lamb as a sustainable antioxidant and antidiabetic drug material
Abstract:
Great interest has been directed towards plants as a sustainable source of antioxidant and antidiabetic materials. To avoid the destructive harvesting and promote stabilized usage of plant, leaves are used as the prime component for the study. The Phenolic compounds constitute one of the major groups of plant chemical constituents acting as primary antioxidants, Flavonoids as one of the most diverse groups of natural compounds possessing a broad spectrum of biological activities. In consideration of the view, Cupressus torulosa D. Don ex Lamb commonly known as Himalayan cypress or Bhutan cypress was studied for total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid contents (TFC) and its antioxidant and antidiabetic efficacy. This is a large evergreen conifer tree under the family Cupressaceae, native to South Asia and distributed in temperate zone up to 3000 m. Leaves of the plant were collected from various locations of Uttarakhand and Himachal. Dried and powdered leaves were at first defatted with Hexane and then sequentially extracted followed by removal of chlorophyll which yielded 19.2% of total extract. TPC and TFC were determined spectrometrically following Folin-Ciocalteu and aluminium chloride protocols respectively. The antioxidant activity of leaf extract was evaluated in term of DPPH, metal chelating, hydrogen peroxide scavenging and reducing power efficiency taking Ascorbic acid (standard antioxidant) as positive control. Antidiabetic activity was accessed by α-Glucosidase inhibition assay. The highest TPC and TFC in the extract were recorded as 208.21 g GAE/g and 85.19 mg QE/g of dry extract respectively. Furthermore, the results all in-vitro assays in relation to antioxidant and antidiabetic activity were found comparable with that of positive control. The better antioxidant activity and antidiabetic activity of the plant gained credence from the high TPC and TFC in the plant extract, thereby establishing the plant as a promising source for the two mentioned activities.
