Determination of Phenolic and Flavonoid Content in Ziziphus Jujuba Mill. Fruit Collected from Farah Province, Afghanistan

Abstract

The fruit of jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.), a member of the Rhamnaceous family, is a valuable exporting dry fruit of Afghanistan. The plant is found in some provinces of the country, but Farah province produces it more. The purposes of this study were to standardize the jujube fruit collected from Farah Province and to determine the amount of its phenolic and flavonoid contents. Jujube fruit (JFs22) was collected from medicinal plant sellers in Kabul. After identification and pharmacogenetic evaluation of JFs22, the amount of phenolic and flavonoid content in the fruit was determined using UV-Vis spectroscopy. The test sample was Ziziphus jujuba. The JFs22 had 10.27±0.532% foreign matter, 4.58±0.33% moisture, 1.97±0.09% total ash, 0.26±0.04% acid insoluble ash, 50.69±0.30% water soluble extractive content, and 24.93±0.59% methanolic extractive value. The JFs22 had flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins, phenolic substances, saponin, and mucilage as its active ingredients. The total phenolic (TPC) and total flavonoid (TFC) contents of the methanolic extract of JFs22 were 9.84±1.65 mg gallic acid equivalent (GAE) and 0.55±0.04 mg rutin equivalent (RE) in 3 grams of dry fruit weight, respectively. Although in most of the cases, the values obtained from the pharmacogenetic evaluation of JFs22 ​​were lower than the standard, nevertheless, they are within the standard range available in pharmacopeias, and this may be considered a good quality of tested jujube fruit and notice for paying much attention for its processing. The determination of TPC and TFC of JFs22 showed that the Farah province jujube fruit has many polyphenols.