Antioxidant and antimicrobial potentials of Retama Sphaerocarpa.

The present work studies the antioxidant activities and antimicrobial properties of the aerial part of Retama sphaerocarpa. The secondary metabolites (polyphenols) were extracted using different solvents: chloroform, ethyl acetate and n-butanol. In each fraction, total polyphenols and flavonoids were respectively quantified using Folin-Ciocalteu test and aluminium chloride colorimetric method. The concentration of polyphenols was higher in the chloroform extract (121.4 +/- 0.3 mg GAE/g), than in n-butanol extract (111.7 +/- 0.1 mg GAE/g) and ethyl acetate extract (73.0 +/- 0.4 mgGAE/g). The evaluation of flavonoids content also showed a high value of flavonoid in chloroform extract (20.9 +/- 0.2 mg QE /g DM), whereas the ethyl acetate and the n-butanol extracts of Retama sphaerocarpa leaves contained similar quantity of flavonoids with 16.5+/- 0.8 mg QE /g DM and 15.3+/- 0.7 mg QE/g DM, respectively. The obtained extracts of R. sphaerocarpa were also evaluated for their antioxidant activities using DPPH radical-scavenging method. The three extracts (i. e. chloroform, ethyl acetate and n-butanol extracts) showed very high free radical scavenging activity: 73 +/- 0.8, 75.6 +/- 1.9 and 81.5 +/- 0.3 (%), respectively. We also investigated the antimicrobial activities of the three extracts using the disc diffusion method. Each of the three extracts were active against Bacillus sp.