Bioassay-Guided Assessment of Antioxidative, Anti-Inflammatory and Antimicrobial Activities of Extracts from Medicinal Plants via High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography

Abstract

Natural products and their analogues have contributed significantly to treatment options, especially for anti-inflammatory and infectious diseases. Thus, the primary objective of this work was to compare the bioactivity profiles of selected medicinal plants that are historically used in folk medicine to treat inflammation and infections in the body. Chemical HPTLC fingerprinting was used to assess antioxidant, phenolic and flavonoid content, while bioassay-guided HPTLC was used to detect compounds with the highest antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activities. The results of this study showed that green tea leaf, walnut leaf, St. John’s wort herb, wild thyme herb, European goldenrod herb, chamomile flower, and immortelle flower extracts were strong radical scavengers. Green tea and nettle extracts were the most active extracts against E. coli, while calendula flower extract showed significant potency against S. aureus. Furthermore, green tea, greater celandine, and fumitory extracts exhibited pronounced potential in suppressing COX-1 activity. The bioactive compounds from the green tea extract, as the most bioactive, were isolated by preparative thin-layer chromatography and characterized with their FTIR spectra. Although earlier studies have related green tea’s anti-inflammatory properties to the presence of catechins, particularly epigallocatechin-3-gallate, the FTIR spectrum of the compound from the most intense bioactive zone showed the strongest anti-inflammatory activity can be attributed to amino acids and heterocyclic compounds. As expected, antibacterial activity in extracts was related to fatty acids and monoglycerides.

Antioxidant Capacity of Honey Enriched by Wildflowers

“…The vast majority of the plant species used in this experiment are known, especially in pharmacy, as plants with medicinal properties and as ingredients of medicines recommended for respiratory diseases (e.g., Herbapect cough syrup) or as immunityboosting medicines (e.g., Sinupret), although the therapeutic substances were obtained from morphological parts other than flowers [56][57][58]. Most of the plants used in our experiments are also identified in the literature as potentially effective plants with a range of beneficial qualities, such as antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antioxidative properties [31]. However, they have not been used as food additives, especially as flowers.…”

“…In turn, Ðor dević et al [59] demonstrated the most intense extraction of rutin and quercetin in an acacia honey sample enriched with 10% of the Sophora flower (150.24 mg/kg of rutin and 1338.93 mg/kg of quercetin), which moreover had a pleasant taste and aroma. In their study, Jović et al [31] demonstrated the high pro-health potential of nineteen extracts from the leaves and flowers of medicinal plants and herbs, including cowslip primrose (Primula veris L.) flower, black elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.) flower, and high mallow (Malva sylvestris L.) flower. Among these, the cowslip primrose (Primula veris L.) extract was characterised by the highest antioxidative potential of 188.5 GAE mg•g −1 , with black elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.) extract coming second with an antioxidative activity of 170.4 GAE mg•g −1 , while high mallow (Malva sylvestris L.) had a potential 10 times lower than black elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.) flowers.…”

“…Their potential as a pharmaceutical material has been disqualified since insufficient concentrations of medicinal substances can be a precious material for food production, providing disease prevention and health-boosting properties but not medicinal qualities, unless all of the possible contraindications have been analysed. In recent years, numerous studies have been undertaken based on traditional medicine, herbal medicine, and biomedicine [30,31]. As a result of significantly improved nutritional knowledge, consumer behaviours, such as the greening of consumption, consumer ethnocentrism, selftreatment, and subordinating consumer decisions to sustainable lifestyle principles, can all be seen.…”

Potential application of green extracts rich in phenolics for innovative functional foods: natural deep eutectic solvents as media for isolation of biocompounds from berries

“…Bioautography was performed against five bacterial strains, encompassing both Gram-negative strains, E. coli ATCC 35218 and K. pneumoniae ATCC 29665, and Gram-positive strains, S. aureus ATCC 6538, MRSA ATCC 33591 and B. subtilis ATCC 6633 according to a modified procedure described in the literature. 39 The standard bacterial strains were cultivated on nutrient agar slants for 24 hours at 37 °C. Each well-grown culture was subsequently suspended in 5 mL of sterile physiological solution.…”

Phenolic Compounds of Honey Enriched by Wild-growing Spring Flowers as a New Diet Ingredient

“…The time of the coronavirus pandemic, time of unceasing restrictions, limitations in contact has brought society closer to nature, or has simply restored the proper respect and importance that nature is due. In recent years numerous studies were undertaken based on traditional medicine, herbal medicine and biomedicine [47].…”