Abstract: To investigate the α-glucosidase inhibitory and antioxidant activity of Ardisia crenata, 96-microplate-based method was used to assay α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of A. crenata and antioxidant activity was determined by the method of DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP. The results showed that the ethyl acetate extract (IC50=39.27 μg/mL) had the highest α-glucosidase inhibitory activity, the petroleum ether extract came second (IC50=56.11 μg/mL), and the n-butanol extract was the weakest (IC50=62.05 μg/mL). But all of them showed higher activity than Acarbose (IC50=1081.27 μg/mL). The ethyl acetate extract showed the highest antioxidant activity which was higher than n-butanol extract. The DPPH radical scavenging activity of ethyl acetate extract (IC50=38.55 mg/L) was half of BHT (IC50=18.71 mg/L) while ABTS radical scavenging activity (IC50=3.60 mg/L) was higher than that of BHT (IC50=7.44 mg/L) and lower than that of BHA (IC50=1.74 mg/L). It exhibited the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP=512.99 ±6.80 μmol TE/g) which was almost one third of BHT (FRAP=1581.68±97.41 μmol TE/g). The results indicated that the ethyl acetate extract of A. crenata exhibited the strongest activity of α-glucosidase inhibitory and antioxidant activities.

Key words: Ardisia crenata, α-glucosidase inhibitory activity, antioxidant activity