Comparison of the Total Phenol, Flavonoid Contents and Antioxidant Activity of Methanolic Roots Extracts of Asphodelus microcarpus and Asphodeline lutea Growing in Syria

Medicinal plants are a source for a wide variety of natural antioxidants. In the study reported here, we have conducted acomparative study between two medicinal plants roots having the same geographic origin and growing in the same naturalconditions. The present study is designed to evaluate the radical scavenging activity, total phenol content (TPC) and totalflavonoid content (TFC) of the MeOH roots extracts of Asphodelus microcarpus and Asphodeline lutea. The antioxidantactivity of the extracts was examined by DPPH method. Total phenol and total flavonoid quantities of the samples weredetermined spectrophotometrically using Folin-Ciocalteu and AlCl3 reagents respectively. The roots in both plantsexhibited the free radical scavenging property (IC50= 0.30, 0.54 mg/ml) for A. microcarpus and A. lutea, respectivelycompared to that of the positive control BHT (IC50= 0.017 mg/ml). As assumed, the amount of total phenolics was (17.90,13.02 mg GAE/ g dry weight for A. microcarpus and A. lutea root extracts, respectively. Roots extract of Asphodelusmicrocarpus were the richest in total phenolic compounds and also it has been found to be rich in flavonoids (14.60 mgrutinoside/g dry weight). To our knowledge, this is the first report on the antioxidant activity of A. microcarpus and A.lutea root from Syrian origin and our findings suggest the possibility of using the roots as a novel source of naturalantioxidant agent for the food and pharmaceutical industries