In Vitro Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activity of Ethanol Extract of Three Hypericum and Three Achillea Species From Turkey

The present study was conducted to determine the antimicrobial, antifungal and antioxidant activity of the ethanol extract of Hypericum scabrum L (HSm), Hypericum lysimachioides var. lysimachioides (HL), and Hypericum retusum Aucher (HR) and ethanol extracts of Achillea aleppica D.C. subsp. aleppica (AA), Achillea aleppica D.C. subsp. zederbaueri (Hayek) Hub.-Mor (AZ), and Achillea biebersteinii Afan. (AB). The antioxidant properties of extracts were evaluated using different antioxidants tests, including reducing power, free radical scavenging, deoxyribose assay, metal chelating activities and determination of total phenolic compounds. The extracts obtained from Hypericum and Achillea species showed high antioxidant properties. The protective effects of plant extracts were compared with a well known antioxidant, Butilated Hydroxytoluen (BHT) and -tocopherol. Total antioxidant activity of ethanol extracts of plants were also tested by using ferric thiocyanate (FTC) and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) methods. Antioxidative activities of plant extracts were found to be comparable with Vitamin E. The results showed that the ethanol extracts of all tested plant exhibited different activity against tested microorganisms. Since most of the studied extracts have good antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, it might be possible to use them as natural food additives that act both as antioxidants and as spices.