Abstract

F. virosa is of the family Phyllanthaceae, also called white berry-bush found in the Southern parts of Nigeria. The leaves of F. virosa were collected from the environments in Wukari, dried under room temperature and crushed into powdered form using mortar and pestle. The samples were macerated for 72 hours using each of hexane, ethyl acetate, acetone, and methanol as solvents in increasing polarity. The crude extracts were concentrated using rotary evaporator at 40 oC; it was observed that methanol extract had the highest yield (4.42 %); followed by acetone (1.05 %); hexane (1.10 %); and ethyl acetate had the least yield (0.99 %), this could be attributed to the nature of the constituents as well as the polarity of the solvents. The antioxidant activity of the crude extracts were then determined using DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl) free radical scavenging assay at various concentrations of 0.0313, 0.0625, 0.1250, 0.2500, and 0.500mg/mL, with vitamin C as standard. The IC50 values were calculated using the linear regression equations and observed that the standard had the least IC50 value of 22.52 mg/mL indicating highest antioxidant activity, comparing to that of the extracts, methanol extract (37.58 mg/mL) was closely comparable to that of the standard, closely followed by that of acetone extract (40.26 mg/mL), then, hexane (43.67 mg/mL), and lastly ethyl acetate (56.89 mg/mL). This has shown that the plant has antioxidant properties and it can be a good source of antioxidant validating its uses by the locals. This research work is in continuation of our previous works - phytochemical and antimicrobial activities.