Biological activity of flavonoids from Sonchus brachyotus

Abstract

The aim of this study was to isolate and identify secondary metabolites from Sonchus brachyotus and evaluate their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. In this study, we isolated three flavonoids from a 70% EtOH extract by Medium Pressure Liquid Chromatography (MPLC) and prep-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). To evaluate the biological activities (an-tioxidant and anti-inflammatory) of these flavonoids, their in vitro inhibitory activities against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, nitric oxide (NO) production, and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) secretion were determined. We successfully identified three flavonoids, namely luteolin (1), luteolin-7-O-β-D-glucoside (2), and luteolin-7-O-β-D-glucuronide (3) by spectral analyses. Luteolin (1) at 20 μg/mL inhibited ROS generation, NO production, and PGE2 secretion by 48.6%, 61.28% and 12.10%, respectively, and luteolin-7-O-β-D-glucoside (2) inhibited NO and PGE2 generation by 67.03% and 20.82%, respectively. Luteolin (1) and luteolin-7-O-β-D-glucoside (2) showed similar anti-inflammatory activities; however, luteolin (1) was observed to be a stronger antioxidant. Besides antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, S. brachyotus extract containing luteolin (1) and lu-teolin-7-O-β-D-glucoside (2) is considered to possess diverse biological activities. The results indicate that S. brachyotus is an edible medicinal plant, which is believed to be significant resource of functional foods.

Keywords

• anti-inflammatory
• antioxidant
• flavonoids
• luteolin
• luteolin-7-o-β-d-glucoside