No abstract

This work was carried out in collaboration between both authors. Author KA designed the study, performed the statistical analysis, wrote the protocol, wrote the first draft of the manuscript and managed the literature searches, analyses of the study and performed the spectroscopy analysis. Author RV managed the overall checking of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Objective: The aim of this research work is to investigate antioxidant ability and analyse phytochemicals in some of the common Indian vegetables. Methodology: Different concentrations of the extracts were screened for estimating their DPPH scavenging ability by UV-spectrophotometry. Methanol was used as control while ascorbic acid was used as a standard antioxidant. IC50 and percentage inhibition were calculated. Results: Chenopodium album was found to show higher ability with IC 50 at 82.93 ± 0.17 µg/ml while maximum % inhibition of 68.74 ± 0.17% was obtained at 100 µg/ml. The R 2 values were greater than 0.9 indicating that the relationship between extract concentration and % inhibition was extremely strong. Qualitative biochemical analysis of both the extracts showed the presence of carbohydrates, reducing sugars, alkaloids, flavonoids, triterpenoids, steroids, tannin and phenolic compound. Conclusions: The in vitro study showed that Portulaca oleracea and Chenopodium album proved to be good scavengers of free radicals like DPPH.