Research Article Vernonia condensata Baker (Asteraceae): A Promising Source of Antioxidants

Copyright © 2013 Jucélia Barbosa da Silva et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The present study evaluated the antioxidant potential of Vernonia condensata Baker (Asteraceae). Dried and powdered leaves were exhaustively extracted with ethanol by static maceration followed by partition to obtain the hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and butanol fractions. Total phenols and flavonoids contents were determined through spectrophotometry and flavonoids were identified by HPLC-DAD system. The antioxidant activity was assessed by DPPH radical scavenging activity, TLC-bioautography, reducing power of Fe+3, phosphomolybdenum, and TBA assays. The total phenolic content and total flavonoids ranged from 0.19 to 23.11 g/100 g and from 0.13 to 4.10 g/100 g, respectively. The flavonoids apigenin and luteolin were identified in the ethyl acetate fraction.The IC 50 ofDPPHassay varied from4.28 to 75.1