Phytochemical profile of fresh and senescent leaves due to storage for Ficus deltoidea

This study was carried out to investigate the phytochemical profiles of plant leaves, namely fresh and senescent leaves from Ficus deltoidea upon storage at room temperature. The phytochemical profile is of great importance, since this herb is widely used as traditional herbal medicine. Both chromatographic and mass spectrometric profiles of the plant extracts were fingerprinted using a high sensitivity hyphenated system consisting of liquid chromatography integrated with tandem mass spectrometer. Identical extraction protocol was used to extract phytochemicals from both leaf samples using 50% v/v methanolic aqueous solvent system. The plant extracts were determined for their total phenolic and flavonoid contents, as well as their antioxidant capacities based on radical scavenging, ferrous chelation, and ferric reducing power assays. The results showed that senescent leaf extracts exhibited higher antioxidant capacity than fresh leaf samples. This observation could be due to the higher number of phenolic compounds in the senescent leaf samples. The senescence of postharvest leaves was likely to consume organic acids including phenolic acids in the defense mechanism against the drought stress. However, flavonoids, particularly flavones and isoflavones, were abundant in the senescent leaf extracts. The findings may explain the significant pharmacological properties reported by previous investigators.