Total Phenolic Content and Antioxidant Activity of Spilanthes Species from Peninsular India

Spilanthes is a genus of herbs belonging to Asteraceae family commonly known as '' Toothache plant". The inflorescence is used for treating sore throat, stammering and redness of gums and is known to have anti-malarial, anti-diuretic and anti-inflammatory properties. It has been reported that they show high antioxidant activity, in the present study, the antioxidant activity was measured in terms of Ferrous Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) for six species of Spilanthes and total phenolic content. Spilanthes ciliata leaves were found to have highest total phenolic content (21.53 mg/g of GAE). Lowest value was recorded in Spilanthes oleracea. Leaves showed more phenols compared to the other parts. Inflorescence showed moderate activity with maximum recorded in S. oleracea. In roots, the total phenolic content was moderate with the maximum recorded in S. ciliata and minimum in S. radicans. In FRAP assay, the maximum activity was observed in S. ciliata followed by S. calva and minimum was observed in S. radicans. Among inflorescence, S. calva and S. oleracea showed higher activity compared to other parts of all other species. Inflorescence of all the other species showed moderate activity. In roots, the antioxidant activity was maximum in S. ciliata and S. uliginosa recorded least activity with maximum reading in S. calva leaves=0.381, minimum in S. uliginosa, root=0.23, among leaves highest frap reading was obtained in S. calva and in roots S. calva and S. oleracea both showed equal FRAP readings and in Inflorescence maximum was in S. calva followed by S. oleracea. This is the first report of comparison of six species of Spilanthes with different plant parts for total phenolic compounds and FRAP assay.