Identification of antioxidant properties of Morus rubra

Abstract

Lately, natural antioxidants are on demand globally for anti-aging and health purposes. Red mulberry has been discovered to have antioxidant properties and it is edible by man. In this study, antioxidant properties of different parts of Morus rubra (red mulberry) which were harvested from Malaysia were investigated. The target study parts of Morus plant were unripe fruits, ripe fruits, leaves, petiole, and stem. DPPH assay and H 2 O 2 assay were used to study the antioxidants properties of red mulberry in vitro . The results of this study had shown that leaves extract has the highest antioxidants properties with inhibition values of 86.69±0.954% in DPPH assay and 32.94±1.516% in H 2 O 2 assay. On the other hand, stem extract of mulberry showed the lowest antioxidants properties among all with inhibition values of 7.18±1.201% in DPPH assay and 3.97±2.728% in H 2 O 2 assay. The result indicated that the DPPH radical scavenging properties of different parts of mulberry are as the order of leaves, petiole, ripe fruit, unripe fruit and stem from high to low. On the other hand, the same order was discovered for H 2 O 2 radical scavenging activity. Further studies can be undertaken to understand how the dose of each extract of mulberry affect their antioxidant properties. Hence, the IC50 value of different parts of mulberry can be studied.