Evaluation of antioxidant activity of Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrad. extracts and their effect on urease activity

This study was aimed to evaluate the antioxidative and urease inhibitory properties of the extracts from Citrullus colocynthis L. The extracts of the root and pulp of fruit were prepared by soxhlet apparatus in methanol as solvent. The antioxidative activities, including DPPH radical scavenging activity, reducing power and total antioxidant activity were studied in vitro. The results showed that both tested extracts have antioxidative characteristics and it was found that the antioxidative activities of all the extracts increased with the increase of the concentration. In this report the methanolic extracts of C. colocynthis root and pulp were evaluated for their effect on inhibition of soybean urease using the indophenol method as described by Weatherburn. The inhibition potency was measured by spectroscopy technique at 630 nm which attributes to released ammonium. The extracts showed inhibitory activities with IC50 7.31μg/µl for root extract and 13.71μg/µl for pulp extract.