Evaluation of reactive oxygen species scavenging activities and DNA damage prevention effect of Pleioblastus kongosanensis f. aureostriatus leaf extract by chemiluminescence assay

•PLE and fractions showed good ROS scavenging and DNA damage prevention ability.•EtOAc and BuOH fractions acted as the better DAN damage inhibitors than others.•DNA damage prevention ability was attributed to their good ROS scavenging effects.•Flavonoids may be the main compounds responsible for the ROS scavenging ability.

Reactive oxygen species scavenging effect of Pleioblastus kongosanensis f. aureostriatus   leaf extract against O2-, OH and H2O2 were investigated by chemiluminescence methods in vitro. Bamboo grass leaves were extracted with 70% ethanol solution and sequentially partitioned with solvents in an order of increasing polarity. Among fractions of different polarity, BuOH and EtOAc fractions showed powerful scavenging activities than others, and showed better scavenging ability on OH than that of O2-and H2O2, with IC50 of 0.55 μg/mL and 0.60 μg/mL, respectively. Both OH-induced DNA damage model by chemiluminescence assay and plasmid pUC18 double-strand break model by agarose gel electrophoresis showed that BuOH and EtOAc fractions had remarkable concentration-dependent prevention effect on the OH-induced damage of DNA attribute to their good scavenging effects on ROS. Results from the compositional analysis of different fractions indicate that the flavonoids in the Pleioblastus kongosanensis f. aureostriatus leaf may be responsible for its ROS scavenging activity and DNA damage prevention ability.

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