Solidago virgaurea L. is used in Romania for its diuretic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial or healing
properties [1]
[2]. In this work, we evaluated the influence of the extraction methods on polyphenol
and flavonoid content, antioxidant and inhibitory α-amylase and α-glucosidase activities
of S. virgaurea extracts. The extracts were obtained using: accelerated solvent extraction (ASE),
ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and laser extraction (LE) at 532 nm, 1064 nm,
and 1550 nm. ASE revealed the high phenolic and flavonoid compounds (2126.57 µg chlorogenic
acid equivalent/mL and 197.14 µg rutin equivalent/mL), followed by LE at 532 nm for
total phenolic compounds (1557.53 µg chlorogenic acid equivalent/mL) and at 1550 nm
for flavonoids (191.79 µg rutin equivalent/mL). The LE at 1064 nm highlighted the
small values of the extracted compounds of interest. ASE and LE at 1550 nm proved
the high antioxidant activity in the DPPH scavenging test (95.1% and 96.3%) and reducing
power (96.8% and 95.6%, respectively). All extracts showed a moderate α-amylase inhibitory
activity (IC50 ranging from 3291.8 to 4680.5 μg/mL) but the strongest inhibitory effect on α-glucosidase
(IC50 from 80.4 to 149.6 μg/mL). This research is the first to present the α- amylase and
α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of S. virgaurea.
Funding This work was supported by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization,
CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2021-1185, within PNCDI III.
