Chemical Characterization and Determination of the Antioxidant Properties of Phenolic Compounds in Three Scutellaria sp. Plants Grown in Colombia

Plants of the genus Scutellaria (Lamiaceae) have a wide variety of bioactive secondary metabolites with diverse biological properties, e.g., anti-inflammatory, antiallergenic, antioxidant, antiviral, and antitumor activities. The chemical composition of the hydroethanolic extracts, obtained from dried plants of S. incarnata, S. coccinea, and S. ventenatii x S. incarnata, was determined by UHPLC/ESI-Q-Orbitrap-MS. The flavones were found in a higher proportion. Baicalin and dihydrobaicalein-glucuronide were the major extract components in S. incarnata (287.127 +/- 0.005 mg/g and 140.18 +/- 0.07 mg/g), in S. coccinea (158.3 +/- 0.34 mg/g and 51.20 +/- 0.02 mg/g), and in S. ventenatii x S. incarnata (186.87 +/- 0.01 mg/g and 44.89 +/- 0.06 mg/g). The S. coccinea extract showed the highest antioxidant activity in the four complementary techniques employed to evaluate all extracts: ORAC (3828 +/- 3.0 mu mol Trolox((R))/g extract), ABTS(+center dot) (747 +/- 1.8 mu mol Trolox((R))/g extract), online HPLC-ABTS(+center dot) (910 +/- 1.3 mu mol Trolox((R))/g extract), and beta-carotene (74.3 +/- 0.8 mu mol Trolox((R))/g extract).