Current Issues of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences

Annales UMCS, Sectio DDD, Pharmacia, Vol. XXIV, N 3, 22

URSZULA ZŁOTEK, URSZULA SZYMANOWSKA, MONIKA KARAŚ

Department of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland

Abstract

Purple basil (Ocimum basilicum L. cv. Dark Opal), cultivated in grown chamber, pretreated with abiotic elicitors: arachidonic acid (AA), jasmonic acid (JA) and b-aminobutyric acid (BABA). The content of: total phenolics, flavonoids, phenolic acids and anthocyanins in methanolic extracts of basil leaves were determined. Antioxidant activity of obtained extracts against DPPH^• and ABTS^•+ and Fe(II) chelating ability also were investigated. In extracts of basil pretreated with AA and JA increase of the content of all analyzed polyphenols was observed. The most effective inductor was jasmonic acid, which caused increase of phenolic acids content by 36%, flavonoids by 20% in comparison to control. The increase of antioxidant activity of analyzed extracts was detected – the best antiradical effects were obtained after arachidonic acid treatment. The b-aminobutyric acid was not effective elicitor to inducing polyhenols in basil.

Keywords

purple basil, elicitors, phenolics, antioxidant activity