Antioxidants from the leaf extract of Byrsonima bucidaefolia.

The radical scavenging assay-guided fractionation of the leaf extract of Byrsonima bucidaefolia Standl. yielded two metabolites with antioxidant activity, identified as methyl gallate (1) and methyl m-trigallate (2) on the basis of their spectroscopic data. Both 1 and 2 were identified as artifacts of the extraction and/or the purification process, possibly resulting from transesterification of precursor gallotannins. Evaluation of the antioxidant activity of both the isolated metabolites 1 and 2 and three of their derivatives (3-5), showed that 1 and 2 have a stronger antioxidant activity than vitamin C when tested using the DPPH reduction assay.