Abstract
In this study, we characterized organic compounds from extracts of the herb Aframomum melegueta K. Schum using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS) analysis. The influence of five different solvents, 10% sodium hydroxide (NaOH), methanol, ethanol, petroleum ether and n-hexane on the nature of extracted organic compounds and efficiency of extraction was evaluated. Results showed that organic compounds present in extracts of A. melegueta depends on the type of extraction solvents used and that only few compounds are similar in all the extracts analyzed by the GC-MS. Specifically, the polar solvents (10% NaOH, methanol and ethanol) were more effective for recovering phenolic compounds and organic acid esters. While the non-polar solvents (petroleum ether and n-hexane) helped to effectively, recover essential oil derivatives and cholesterols. We described in this paper the correlations among the structures of the most abundant compounds in all the extracts with their probable pharmacologic effects in living hosts. The findings of this study demonstrated that A. melegueta contains organic compounds, which may serve as new drug leads of natural products origin and make it employable in modern pharmacological practices.
Highlights
The herb Aframomum melegueta K.Schum is a tropical herbaceous herb of the family Zingiberaceae; it is commonly referred to as “ Alligator Pepper ” [1,2]
The compounds identified from the 10% NaOH extract include conjugated phenols, organic acids and aromatic ketones
The identities of organic compounds present in 10% NaOH extract suggests that the extraction solvent (10% NaOH) is more suitable for recovering of phenols and organic acids compared to other polar solvents used in this study
Summary
The herb Aframomum melegueta K.Schum is a tropical herbaceous herb of the family Zingiberaceae; it is commonly referred to as “ Alligator Pepper ” [1,2]. There is a growing interest for precise analyses on identification of active compounds present in local herbs, which necessitate structural elucidation studies on these herbs to provide scientific justifications for their pharmacologic effects in living hosts [8,9]. To achieve this holistic study of organic compounds, present in herbs, scientists make use of analytical methods such as spectrophotometry, High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Gas Chromatography (GC) with flame ionization Detection (FID) or Gas Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) [7,8]. The GC-MS combines an ideal separation technique (GC) with stellar identification technique (MS), making GC-MS a useful technique for qualitative and quantitative analyses of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds [7,8]
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