In vitro antioxidant effects of barberry fruit extracts.

A vast majority of the studies addressing the free radicals including hydroxyl radical is a damage compound of biochemical molecules such as DNA, proteins and lipids. When free radicals specially hydroxyl radical are not adequately removed from the body, it may damage biological macromolecules, leading to a variety of disease occurs. Therefore, the body should be protected by an enzymatic or non-enzymatic antioxidant defense system against free radicals. In order to explore the hypothesis that antioxidant plants can serve as therapeutic agents for diseases, the effect of Barberry fruit extracts was studied in an in vitro model. By evaluating their scavenging potential. Barberry fruits were collected from Babol, Iran and certified by the local scientist Mazandaran Province, Iran. The Barberry fruits were cleaned and dried at room temperature while keeping away from direct sunlight and then powdered. Suitable amounts of dried plant were coarsely grounded and used for extraction. The dry plant samples were extracted with water and/or ethanol. 10 g of Barberry fruits extracts powder was percolated by water for 24 hours. The extract was filtered and concentrated. Hydroxyl radical was produced as described previously. Then, Barberry fruits hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity was determined using deoxyribose degradation system, followed spectrophotometrically at 532 nm. As expected ,our data indicate that the level of hydroxyl radical generation in with aqueous and /or ethanol extracts of barberry fruit was decreased in comparison without barberry fruit extract in vitro system [(6.11±0.83, 5.28 ±1.44, mmol/ml) vs. (9.32±0.38, mmol/ml)], p<0.05, respectively. Indeed, our results revealed that the extracts of the Barberry fruit scavenge hydroxyl radical in vitro sample as compared to the controls. The barberry fruit extracts proved to be an effective for hydroxyl radical scavenging. The present data revealed that beneficial effect of Barberry fruit aqueous and ethanol extracts may be due to its free radical scavenging potential. It may therefore be interesting that he barberry fruit extracts has the unique capacity to quench free radicals.