Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 

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EVALUATION OF THE POLYPHENOLIC PROFILE AND THE IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL OF SEVEN GERANIUM SPECIES FROM THE ROMANIAN FLORA

ANCA TOIU 1, ANA-MARIA VLASE 2, LAURIAN VLASE 3*, MIHAELA-ANCUŢA NECHITA 1, ILIOARA ONIGA ¹

¹ Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, “Iuliu Haţieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 12 Ion Creangă Street, 400010, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2 Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, Faculty of Pharmacy, “Iuliu Haţieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 8 Victor Babeş Street, 400010, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
3 Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, “Iuliu Haţieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 8 Victor Babeş Street, 400010, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

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The aim of this study was the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the active compounds and the in vitro evaluation of the antioxidant potential of preparations obtained from the aerial parts of seven Geranium species of the Romanian flora. Each was processed into a hot hydroalcoholic extract and a tincture, characterised by the total polyphenol (TPC), total flavonoid (TFC) and total caffeic acid derivative (TCADC) content, by HPLC-UV-MS quantification of 31 phenolic compounds and by the DPPH and FRAP tests. TPC ranged from 1.87 to 5.70, TFC from 0.65 to 3.53 and TCADC from 0.23 to 1.87 g equivalents/100 g plant material. The profiles were species-dependent, and caftaric acid, vitexin, epigallocatechin gallate and gallic acid are proposed as candidate chemotaxonomic markers. The reducing power (1186 - 4613 µM Trolox equivalents/100 mL) was predicted by TPC (r = 0.916), whereas radical scavenging (IC50 15.4 - 79.4 µg/mL) followed the sum of the quantified compounds (r = - 0.783). The best results were obtained for G. macrorrhizum, G. robertianum and G. pyrenaicum, and hot extraction recovered twice as much flavonoid material as maceration (p = 0.017).