Background : Miscanthus is a species of flowering plant in the family poaceae, native to Eastern Asia throughout most of China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea. It is diploid hybrid grass used as bioenergy plant, biomass production and high quality of cellulose and ethanol production. It is an herbaceous perennial grass, growing up to 0.8 - 3.0 m tall, rarely 4.0 m, forming dense clumps from an underground rhizome. Recently, Studies on Miscanthus have been carried out on the growth characteristics and to see the antioxidant difference of Miscanthus for functional materials in various regions.
Methods and Results : This study carried out the antioxidant activities of Miscanthus collected from different countries of origin. Two hundred one accessions of Miscanthus were collected in 7 countries (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, U.S.A, Zambia). Initially, each leaves were extracted with 70% ethanol to determine actioxidant activty. Antioxidant activities were evaluated by DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activity. The highest DPPH radical scavenging activity showed in the accession [M. sinensis ‘Kleine Silberspinne (little silver spider)’] from U.S.A (RC50: 10.66 ± 15.46 ㎍/㎖) and the lowest showed in the accession (M. sinensis ‘Supr Stripe’) from U.S.A (RC50: 188.03 ± 0.86 ㎍/㎖). The ABTS radical scavenging activity showed the highest in the accession (No.401: JM0310.002) from Japan (RC50: 17.97 ± 3.26 ㎍/㎖) and the lowest showed in the accession (M. sinensis ‘Supr Stripe’) from U.S.A (RC50: 416.88 ± 10.05 ㎍/㎖).
Conclusion : The antioxidant activity of Miscanthus showed in average DPPH radical scavenging activity (RC50: 74.05 ± 3.74 ㎍/㎖) and ABTS radical scavenging activity (RC50: 81.46 ± 3.95 ㎍/㎖). In this study, it may be used for feed crops or food crops as a functional material.