Objective: To investigate antioxidant potential of methanol extract of Alpinia nigra leaves. Methods: The study was done by using various in vitro methods such as 1,1-diphenyl-2picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS), nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide radical scavenging assays. Phytochemical constituents, total phenolic content and total flavonoid content of the extract at different concentrations (10-500 µg/ mL) were determined. Results: Alpinia nigra leaves showed high free radical scavenging activity as evidenced by the low IC 50 values in DPPH (64.51 µg/mL), in ABTS (28.32 µg/mL), in nitric oxide (80.02 µg/mL) and in H 2 O 2 (77.45 µg/mL) scavenging assays. Furthermore the TPC and TFC of the extract were found to be 69.25 mg gallic acid equivalent per gram of extract and 78.84 mg quercetin equivalent per gram of extract respectively. Conclusions: The results of present comprehensive analysis demonstrated that Alpinia nigra leaves possess high phenolic, flavonoid contents and potential antioxidant activity, and could be used as a viable source of natural antioxidants and might be exploited for functional foods and neutraceutical applications.

The essential oil extracted from rhizome and leaf of Curcuma angustifolia Roxb. (Zingiberaceae) was characterised by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The GC-MS analysis revealed the presence of 32 and 35 identified constituents, comprising 92.6% and 92% of total leaf and rhizome oil, respectively. Curzerenone (33.2%), 14-hydroxy-δ-cadinene (18.6%) and γ-eudesmol acetate (7.3%) were the main components in leaf oil. In rhizome oil, curzerenone (72.6%), camphor (3.3%) and germacrone (3.3%) were found to be the major constituents. Antioxidant capacities of oil were assessed by various methods, 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2, 2-azinobis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) and reducing power ability (RPA). Based on the results, the leaf oil showed more antioxidant potential as compared to rhizome oil and reference standards (ascorbic acid and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)). Thus, the leaf essential oil of C. angustifolia can be used as an alternative source of natural antioxidant.

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Curcuma longa L. (Turmeric), of the family Zingiberaceae, is one of the economically as well as medicinally important plant species. It is a sterile, polyploid and vegetatively propagated spice crop cultivated usually in Southeast Asia. In the current study, we carried out re-sequencing through transcriptome profiling of Curcuma longa cv. Kedaram (Cl_Ked_6). We acquired a total of 1 GB raw data by resequencing through paired-end sequencing using Nextseq 500 platform. The raw data obtained in this study can be accessible in NCBI database with accession number of SRR3928562 with bioproject accession number PRJNA324755. Cufflinks-2.2.1 tool was used for transcriptome assembly which resulted in 39,554 numbers of transcripts. The transcript length ranged from 76 to 15,568, having N50 value of 1221 and median transcript length of 860. We annotated the transcripts using multiple databases. This data will be beneficial for studying sequence variations particularly SNPs between cultivars of turmeric towards authentic identification and discovery of novel functional transcripts in Kedaram.