Investigation of antioxidant and radical scavenging potential of Angelica glauca Edgew. and Aralia cachemirica Decne: A high value medicinal plants from Kanawar wildlife sanctuary in Himachal Pradesh of north western Himalayas

The medicinal plants can be used for therapeutic purposes or a precursor for the synthesis of useful drugs because of the presence of active chemical compounds. Thus the aim of the present study was to investigate the antioxidants and radical scavenging potential of high value endemic medicinal plants namely, Angelica glauca Edgew. and Aralia cachemirica Decne. collected from Kanawar Wild life Sanctuary. The study revealed that both the plant extracts have high antioxidant activities with excellent content of polyphenols and flavonoids. The total phenolic contents (TPC) in the root extracts of Angelica glauca and Aralia cachemirica were 486±1.29 GAE μg/10 mL and 276.42±6.35 GAE μg/10 ml. Similarly, the total flavonoid contents (TFC) was 351.45±0.16 QE mg/10 ml and 932.70±6.99 QE mg/10 ml, respectively in the root extracts of A. glauca and A. cachemirica. The root extracts of both the species possesses very good significant reducing power and free radical scavenging ability which might be useful for preventing the progress of various oxidative stress related diseases.