Antioxidant and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of Murraya koenigii leaf extracts

Medicinal plants are source for a wide variety of natural antioxidants. Dietary antioxidant consumption may be an important approach for inhibiting or delaying the oxidation of susceptible cellular substrates and thus is relevant to disease prevention in many paradigms. Murraya koenigii is one of the important medicinal herb which is used as a food ingredient across India. In this study, we demonstrated the reducing power, total antioxidant potential, radical scavenging capabilities and α-glycosidase inhibitory property of different crude extracts of curry leaves (Murraya koenigii L.). The extracts were evaluated for their radical scavenging activities by means of DPPH, NO, ·OH, 02- and anti-lipid peroxidation assays. In addition, extract of M. koenigii were tested for α-glycosidase inhibitory property. The extracts of M. koenigii scavenged radicals effectively in varied degree. Similarly, the total reducing power of alcohol extract was found higher in both phosphomolybednum and FRAP methods. In vitro assay of α-glucosidase activity of MKA and MKW showed an IC50 of 174.74 and 287.00 μg/ml respectively, while other two extracts did not show any significant effect. Simultaneously, total phenolic and total flavonoid contents of extracts were studied, where values of MKW were found to be higher than that of other extracts. In present study, we found that MKA and MKW extracts contain effective antioxidant and radical scavenging activities as compared to other extracts. Our study provides a proof for the ethno-medical claims and reported biological activities that curry leaves have significant therapeutic potential.