Abstract

Propolis is a resinous mixture that honey-bee collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. The chemical constituents of propolis depends on area as well as plant sources. Almost propolis contains polyphenols and flavonoids, except Myanmar propolis contains triterpenoids. Propolis is well known to various biological activities such as antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer. There is no study on chemical constituents and biological acitivities of Vietnamese propolis, therefore, we comparative study on total polyphenols, flavonoids content, and antioxidant activity of propolis from Vietnam and other countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Myanmar, and China. The results showed that, propolis from China, Mexico, Brazil green type and red type contained high amount of polyphenols and flavonoids, and a corresponding high antioxidant capacity. The IC50 values of DPPH scavenging activity were 33.65, 35.98, 46.59 và 55.49 μg mL-1, respectively, and IC50 values of xanthine oxidase inhibitory activity were 43.84, 6.07, 9.16 và > 100 μg mL-1, respectively. Propolis from Vietnam and Myanmar contained small amount of polyphenol and they showed less antioxidant activity.