THE TOTAL PHENOLICS CONTENTS AND FREE RADICAL SCAVENGING CAPACITY IN FREE AND BOUND EXTRACTS OF PIPER SARMENTOSUM (PUCUK KADUK)

Introduction: Piper sarmentosum is one of the herbaceous plants that has been used as natural antioxidant to treat diseases. This study was conducted to determine the total phenolic content (TPC) and free radical scavenging capacity in free and bound (soluble and insoluble) of P. sarmentosum. Methods: The TPC was determined by using Folin-Ciocalteu assay and is expressed as Gallic Acid equivalent (GAE) in miligrams per gram extracts. The antioxidant scavenging capacity was determined by using DPPH (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) assay. Results: Insoluble bound phenolic extract of P. sarmentosum showed the highest TPC value (1.54 ± 0.04 mg GAE/g DW) followed by soluble phenolic extract and free extract (1.13 ± 0.10 and 0.57 ± 0.06 mg GAE/g DW, respectively). The soluble phenolic fraction has expressed the highest radical scavenging capacity (76.57± 4.12%) followed by insoluble (69.79± 2.33 %) and free extracts (58.15± 4.44 %). The IC50 values for free, soluble and insoluble bound phenolic were 24.05 ± 3.81, 16.17 ± 1.84 and 18.49 ± 1.92 mg/ml, respectively. Conclusions: It can be concluded that different extracts of phenolic give different TPC value and antioxidant activity.   KEYWORDS: TPC, radical scavenging, DPPH assay.