eng Science and Education Publishing Journal of Food and Nutrition Research 2333-1240 2015-11-19 3 9 587 592 10.12691/jfnr-3-9-5 JFNR2015395 article Xincheng Yao 1 2 Ting Zhang 2 Hui Tang th_pha@shzu.edu.cn 2 2 Heng Wang 2 Wen Chen 2 2 School of Pharmacy, Shihezi University, Shihezi, Xinjiang, P.R.China Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt., Asteraceae, is widely used as an ornamental plant and as a popular tea production in China. In this paper, we report about the free radical-scavenging, nitrite-scavenging and N-nitrosamine formation inhibitory activities of ethyl acetate extract (EAE) and n-butanol extract (BE) of C. tinctoria ?owering tops (CTF). The results showed the BE contained higher total phenolic content (TPC) , total flavonoid content (TFC) and total proanthocyanidin (TPA) contents with DPPH, ABTS and *OH radical-scavenging activities (IC50) of 25.79±2.753, 26.61±3.158 and 2349.8±0.672 ug/ml, respectively. However, EAE showed higher radical-scavenging activities, with IC50 ABTS and *OH values of 13.71±2.973 and 321.6±0.576 ̦g/ml, respectively. The nitrite-scavenging and N-nitrosamine inhibitory activities (IC50) of EAE were 122.10±1.03 and 2362.86±11.26 ̦g/ml, respectively, whereas those of BE were 118.23±1.30 and 2182.79±10.74 ̦g/ml, respectively. Given these activities, we propose that CTF can be potentially used as a rich source of natural free radical and nitrite scavengers. http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfnr/3/9/5/jfnr-3-9-5.pdf radical-scavenging activity nitrite-scavenging activity N-nitrosamine formation inhibitory activity Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt