Fatty acid composition and antioxidant activity of Ferula persica Boiss

The human body has several antioxidant defense systems to protect healthy cell membranes from free radicals and active oxygen species. The innate defense systems may be supported by antioxidative compounds taken as foods, cosmetics and medicine. There is an increasing interest in natural antioxidants, e.g., poly-phenols, flavonoids, present in medicinal and dietary plants, which might help prevent oxidative damage [1].Ferula Persica (Apiaceae) is the well-known species of the genus Ferula that is traditionally used as laxative, carminative, anti-hysteric, and for the treatment of diabetes, rheumatism and backache. Ferula persica Boiss. was collected from Shahmirzad (Semnan province). The aerial parts of the plant were dried at room temperature and protected from light and fine powdered. The gas chromatography analysis of the oily mixture, which prepared after soxhlet in hexane and trans-esterification process, was performed with a HP 5890 series II gas chromatograph.The methanol, methanol/water and aqueous extracts of Ferula persica were prepared by maceration method in room temperature and the amounts of total phenolics and flavonoids were estimated [2]. Antioxidant activities of all extracts were evaluated by DPPH radical scavenging and total antioxidant assays [3].The results of this study have shown that the aerial parts of the plant contain the unsaturated fatty acids: α- linoleic acid (40.6%) and linoleic acid (22.7%) as major components. The aqueous/methanol extract of the Ferula was assigned highest amount of total phenolic (4.39±0.22 mg GAE/gram of dried plant) and highest amount of total flavonoids (18.90±0.44 mg QE/gram of dried plant). The methanol and methanol/water extracts were shown the high DPPH radical activity (IC50 = 40 ± 0.5 μg/ml). The methanol/water extract has shown the most effective in the total antioxidant assay against the other extracts. The antiradical and antioxidant activities of the methanol/water extract of Ferula persica were correlated with the amounts of total phenolic and flavonoids. It can be concluded that, this plant have the potential that can be used as an accessible source of natural antioxidants with consequent health benefits.