Vesicular–Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Association Alleviates Antioxidant Activity of Bacopa monnieri

Abstract

Methanol extract of Bacopa leaves and ascorbic acid showed a significant scavenging of p < 0.05. The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of vesicular–arbuscular mycorrhiza treatment on antioxidant activity of Bacopa monnieri. Mycorrhiza spores were added to the plants at different time intervals and the plants were categorized as T1, T2, T3 and T4 according to treatments. T1 plants are control, while T2, T3 and T4 plants received treatment of spores for one time, twice at intervals of 30 days and every day for 15 days till harvesting. After harvesting and processing of the leaves, methanolic extracts were prepared by maceration and designated as MEBMT1, MEBMT2, MEBMT3 and MEBMT4. The extracts were studied for quantitative analysis in vitro antioxidant property in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging assay and DPPH free radicals. Among these parameters, IC50 value of MEBMT4 was the lowest among all extracts in almost all parameters studied besides its high content of antioxidant phytochemicals. The results indicated that Mycorrhiza treatment caused a marked elevation on antioxidant status of the plant.

Keywords: ascorbic acid, Bacopa, DPPH Scavenging Assay, oxidative stress, phenolic content
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