plants Article Proanthocyanidin Characterization, Antioxidant and Cytotoxic Activities of Three Plants Commonly Used in Traditional Medicine in Costa Rica: Petiveria alliaceae L., Phyllanthus niruri L. and Senna reticulata Willd. Mirtha Navarro 1, Ileana Moreira 2, Elizabeth Arnaez 2, Silvia Quesada 3, Gabriela Azofeifa 3, Diego Alvarado 4 and Maria J. Monagas 5,* 1 Department of Chemistry, University of Costa Rica (UCR), Rodrigo Facio Campus, San Pedro Montes Oca, San Jose 2060, Costa Rica;
[email protected] 2 Department of Biology, Technological University of Costa Rica (TEC), Cartago 7050, Costa Rica;
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[email protected] (E.A.) 3 Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of Costa Rica (UCR), Rodrigo Facio Campus, San Pedro Montes Oca, San Jose 2060, Costa Rica;
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[email protected] (G.A.) 4 Department of Biology, University of Costa Rica (UCR), Rodrigo Facio Campus, San Pedro Montes Oca, San Jose 2060, Costa Rica;
[email protected] 5 Institute of Food Science Research (CIAL), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-UAM), C/Nicolas Cabrera 9, 28049 Madrid, Spain * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 5 September 2017; Accepted: 15 October 2017; Published: 19 October 2017 Abstract: The phenolic composition of aerial parts from Petiveria alliaceae L., Phyllanthus niruri L. and Senna reticulata Willd., species commonly used in Costa Rica as traditional medicines, was studied using UPLC-ESI-TQ-MS on enriched-phenolic extracts. Comparatively, higher values of total phenolic content (TPC), as measured by the Folin-Ciocalteau method, were observed for P. niruri extracts (328.8 gallic acid equivalents/g) than for S.