Unlocking the bio-potential of Erodium moschatum extracts: Chemical characterization, assessment of biological activity and in-silico approaches

The genus Erodium is of great interest due to its use as a traditional medicine in several folk medicine systems. The current study examined the biological properties and chemical constituents of different Erodium moschatum extracts (ethyl acetate, ethanol, ethanol/water (70%) and water). The biological properties were tested for antioxidant capacity, enzyme inhibitory effect, antimicrobial activity and mutagenic/antimutagenic effects. Generally, the ethanol/water and water extracts demonstrated stronger antioxidant activity in the DPPH and ABTS assays (72.29 and 71.63 mg TE/g, and 85.01 and 85.19 mg TE/g, respectively) than the ethanol and ethyl acetate extracts. However, the ethanol extract exhibited the strongest AChE inhibitory effect with 2.58 mg GALAE/g. In Ames test, the extracts exhibited no mutagenic effects at any dose, with or without metabolic activation. The study found that ethyl acetate, ethanol and ethanol/water extracts revealed 42–97% inhibition on TA98 strains against 2-aminofluorene with a S9 mix. The plant extracts demonstrated weak to moderate antimicrobial properties with the minimum inhibitory at concentrations ranging between 12.5 and 0.781 mg/mL, particularly against Gram-positive bacteria and key foodborne pathogens (B. cereus, S. enteritidis), indicating their potential for localized application in food preservation, surface decontamination, and spoilage prevention using natural antimicrobial formulations. The ethanol extract was effective against Sarcina lutea at a concentration of 0.781 mg/ml. The extracts were chemically characterized using an HPLC-ESI-MS/MS system, with twenty-four compounds being identified. Flavonoids were the main group of the detected chemical constituents. From in silico analysis, it also revealed that flavonoids interacted well with the tested enzymes and bacterial proteins. Thus, our findings suggest that E. moschatum is a desirable source of natural bioactive constituents for use in health-promoting applications.