Growth Characteristics, Main Constituents and Antioxidant Activities in Local Accessions of Sophora flavescens AIT.

Abstract

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background: Sophora flavescens AIT root is used as a herbal medicine in Asian culture. This study was aimed at selecting the best cultivars, by comparing growth characteristics, active ingredients, and antioxidant activities. Methods and Results: A total twenty nine accessions of S. flavescens were collected from five different regions in Korea. Plant height, leaf length, peduncle length, fresh root weight, and seed weight were the growth characteristics selected. Antioxidant activity was determined by measuring the total polyphenol (TPC) and total flavonoid contents (TFC) as well as the radical scavenging activity of DPPH, ABTS and FRAP. Oxymatrine and matrine, active ingredients in S. flavescens were analyzed by HPLC. Results indicated that accession YS-11 had the highest plant height (152.5 cm) and peduncle length (54.0 cm). The fresh root weight was highest in JA-01 at 4.9 kg, while the highest total seed weight was recorded in accession BH-04 at 77.7 g. The YS-03 accession contained the highest oxymatrine and matrine total contents (0.9616% and 0.9638%, respectively). Accessions BH-02, YS-11, YS-05, and MJ-03 had the highest levels of antioxidant activity (p < 0.05). Oxymatrine showed a high correlation with TPC and FRAP. TPC showed high correlations with TFC, DPPH, ABTS and FRAP. TFC showed a high correlation with DPPH. Conclusions: The superior lines can be selected for use as standard variety breeding material by comparing the growth characteristics of the accessions.