EVALUATION OF ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIMUTAGENIC ACTIVITIES OF THE EXTRACTS FROM THE FRUIT RINDS OF GARCINIA COWA

Recent studies have reported the biological activities of the crude extracts/purified compounds from various parts of Garcinia cowa. In the present study, the dried fruit rinds of G. cowa were extracted with hexane and chloroform and the extracts were used to evaluate their antioxidant and antimutagenic activities. Using beta-carotene-linoleate-model system, at 200 ppm concentration, hexane, chloroform extracts and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) showed 91.7, 93.7, and 98.0% antioxidant activity, respectively, whereas, at 50 ppm concentration the radical scavenging activity was 83.3, 86.3, and 88.5%, respectively, through DPPH method. At a concentration of 5000 mu g/plate, hexane extract exhibited strong antimutagenicity against the mutagenicity of sodium azide in both the tester strains of Salmonella typhimurium (TA-100 and TA-1535). Chloroform extract showed strong antimutagenicity in both the tester strains at a concentration of 2500 mu g/plate and above. However, the chloroform extract exhibited higher antioxidant and antimutagenic activities than that of hexane extract. This study showed that both the extracts from the fruit rinds of G. cowa possess antioxidant and antimutagenic properties.