Amino acid and mineral composition of moringa oleivera leaves extract and its bioactivity as antioxidant

Moringa leaf (Moringaoleifera) is a plant that grows in Indonesia with high nutritional content. This plant has biological activity as antidiabetic, blood pressure-lowering, and antioxidant. This study analyzes the nutritional content of Moringa leaf extract, especially amino acids, minerals and determines its antioxidant. Analysis of total amino acid content has been carried out by HPLC (High performance liquid chromatography) method, minerals with ICP-OES (Inductive coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy) and antioxidant activity by DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) method. The analysis of Moringa leaf extract has obtained 15 kinds of amino acids, namely: threonine (9403.09), lysine (11694.16), leucine (18087.41), isoleucine (9321.59), phenylalanine (17236.01), valine (11183.48), methionine (5684.68), tryptophan (2577.82) while non-essential amino acids include histidine (9965.39), proline (10068.07), tyrosine (8641.63), aspartate acid (16585.76), glycine (13027.13), arginine (13123.94), alanine (14474.52), glutamate acid (30106.87), serine (10055.98), cysteine (470.37) in ppm. The analysis of minerals has obtained 13 essential minerals included Al, Ca, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Ni, P, Se, Zn. The highest mineral is shown for selenium (1097.84 ppm) and chrome (919.99 ppm) at the second highest order. Sodium (68.83 ppm) and magnesium (60.84 ppm) is found as minerals with low concentrations. The antioxidant test has shown weakness activity with an average IC50 value of 9.901 μg/mL, using ascorbic acid as a positive control with IC50 values of 196.892 μg/mL. The analysis results of amino acids, minerals, and antioxidant activity show that Moringa leaves are very potential for human nutrients.