In vitro antioxidant properties of flavonoid fractions from Pistacia atlantica Desf. subsp. atlantica fruit using five techniques

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the antioxidant activity of the flavonoid fractions of pistacia atlantica fruit using two different solvent: ethyl acetate and butanol. antioxidant activity was measured by five methods: total antioxidant capacity,reducing power,2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (dpph) radical scavenging,hydroxyl (oh) radical scavenging,and β-carotene bleaching activity. the results showed that,the ethyl acetate fraction has a better reducing capacity (ec50 = 0.055 ± 0.002 mg/ml) than that of ascorbic acid (0.063 ± 0.002 mg/ml),a strong scavenging activity of radicals dpph. (ec50 = 14.64 mg antioxidant/g dpph) and oh. (ec50 = 0.27 mg/ml) in comparison with butylated hydroxyl toluene (bht) (ec50 = 13.47 mg/g) and butylated hydroxyanisole (bha) (ec50 = 0.30 mg/ml),respectively. it also exhibited strong β- carotene bleaching (ec50 = 3.52 mg/ml) and total antioxidant capacity (31.20 ±1.87 mg eaa/g) compared to butanolic fraction. the highest antioxidant activity of ethyl acetate fraction may be attributed to the presence of flavonodal constituents such as flavonols and phenolic acids,which confirmed by tlc in both fractions. these results suggest that fruits of p. atlantica can be used as a source of natural antioxidant in food and pharmaceutical industry.