INVESTIGATION OF ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND TOTAL PHENOLIC CONTENT OF VARIOUS FRACTIONS OF AERIAL PARTS OF PIMPINELLA BARBATA (DC.) BOISS

Free radicals play an important role in degenerative diseases. They can also induce nutrition and medicines deterioration. Fortunately, formation of free radical is controlled by a variety of systems which are called "antioxidants". Herbal medicines have been focused as new sources of antioxidants with limited complications. Pimpinella barbata (DC.)Boiss is an annual plant from Apiaceae family.In this study, DPPH radical scavenging assay and FRAP method were used for assaying the antioxidant activity and Folin-Ciocalteu, for quantitative determination of total phenolic content of methanolic, n-hexane, and dichloromethane extract of P.barbata.The antioxidant power in DPPH assay and total phenolics in Folin-Ciocalteu method were evaluated as shown in decreasing order: Methanolic extract > dichloromethane extract > n-hexane extract.In FRAP assay, dichloromethane extract was the most potent while the methanolic extract was the weakest one. In both DPPH assay and Folin-Ciocalteu method, methanolic extract exhibited the highest activity and the most phenolic content respectively while in FRAP test dicholoromethane was shown the highest activity. These results are in agreement with other studies and showed that different tests do not necessarily confirm each other.