2025/01/01 by Paweł Konieczyński, Agnieszka Viapiana, Alina Plenis +4 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Chemistry · Medicine · #Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies #Heavy Metals in Plants #Phytochemicals and Antioxidant Activities
paper · pdf · doi:10.1515/chem-2025-0206
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/11/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Abstract The studies were performed on the elemental composition, also total flavonoid content was analyzed along with the antioxidant activity of four medicinal raw plant materials applied in traditional medicine in Ecuador. The concentration of selected microelements – Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn, also macro-elements – Mg, Ca, K and Na was assayed by FAAS technique and P by UV/Vis spectrometry in relation to total flavonoid content (TFC) and antioxidant activity in aqueous and water–methanol extracts determined by UV/Vis spectrometry, in the samples of medicinal plants collected from nature in Ecuador. It was revealed that the factors responsible for differentiation of studied plant samples are concentrations of copper, phosphorus, manganese and TFC in water-methanol extract. TFC content in water-methanol extract for the samples collected in Ecuador was high. High correlation (r = 0.97) was found between antioxidant activity determined by ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) method in aqueous and water-methanol extracts. The correlation between TFC level in aqueous extracts and TFC in the methanol-water extracts was equal to 0.61. The application of cluster and principal component analyses allowed to identify the groups of medicinal plant samples due to their similarity of composition which is caused by the origin from various botanical species.