Acute oral toxicity, antioxidant activity and total phenolic and flavonoid contents of Coronilla juncea

The aim of this work is the investigation of the in vivo toxicity, antioxidant activity, total phenolic and flavonoid contents of different parts of Coronilla juncea L. extracts (seeds, flowers, stems and roots). In the acute toxicity, the seeds extracts ethyl acetate (EtOAc) extract, median lethal dose (LD50) = 49.01 mg/kg was found to be highly toxic after oral administration in Swiss mice. The median lethal dose of other extracts petroleum ether (PE), n-butanol (n-BuOH) and residual aqueous ranged from 71.66 to 763.48 mg/kg and it was considered as moderately toxic. The antioxidant activity was evaluated using three different assays. In 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical and phosphomolybdate assays, flowers exhibited a remarkable inhibitory effect (EtOAc extract half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) = 62.25 ± 0.35 and n-BuOH extract 80.23 ± 3.73 µg/mL) followed by stems extracts (n-BuOH extract IC50 = 71.03 ± 4.20 µg/mL) in DPPH assay and by seeds (n-BuOH extract IC50 = 88.03 ± 3.70 µg/mL) in phosphomolybdate assay. Compared with other parts of C. juncea, seeds extracts showed also the best generation of superoxide anion (EtOAc extract IC50 = 100.25 ± 1.55 µg/mL) followed by flowers (n-BuOH extract IC50 = 113.73 ± 3.89 µg/mL).To the best of our knowledge, this investigation reported for the first time the quantification of phenolic and flavonoid contents and assessed the antioxidant activity and in vivo toxic properties of four different parts of Coronilla juncea, indicating its potential application in therapeutic purposes.