Abstract
Orchids are rich treasure troves of various important phytomolecules. Among the various medicinal orchids, Ansellia africana stands out prominently in the preparing of various herbal medicines due to its high therapeutic importance. The nodal explants of A. africana were sampled from asymbiotically germinated seedlings on basal Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium and were micropropagated in MS medium supplemented with 3% sucrose and 10 µM meta topolin (mT) + 5 µM naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) +15 µM indole butyric acid (IBA) + 30 µM phloroglucinol (PG). In the present study, the essential oil was extracted by hydrodistillation and the oleoresins by the solvent extraction method from the micropropagated A. africana. The essential oil and the oleoresins were analysed by Gas Chromatography (GC) and GC/MS (Mass spectrometry). A total of 84 compounds were identified. The most predominant components among them were linoleic acid (18.42%), l-ascorbyl 2,6-dipalmitate (11.50%), linolenic acid (10.98%) and p-cresol (9.99%) in the essential oil; and eicosane (26.34%), n-butyl acetate (21.13%), heptadecane (16.48%) and 2-pentanone, 4-hydroxy-4-methyl (11.13%) were detected in the acetone extract; heptadecane (9.40%), heneicosane (9.45%), eicosane (6.40%), n-butyl acetate (14.34%) and styrene (22.20%) were identified and quantified in the ethyl acetate extract. The cytotoxic activity of essential oil and oleoresins of micropropagated A. africana was evaluated by MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium Bromide) assay on Vero cells compared to the standard drug doxorubicin chloride. The present research contains primary information about the therapeutic utility of the essential oil and oleoresins of A. africana with a promising future research potential of qualitative and quantitative improvement through synchronised use of biotechnological techniques.
Highlights
Medicinal herbs are rich treasure troves of many bioactive compounds which provide important remedies for chronic disorders and ailments [1,2]
The documented results imply that acetone extract had the highest extractable solids, followed by ethyl acetate and water, indicating that the yield of extracts could be significantly affected by the solvents
It indicates that maceration with acetone, ethyl acetate and water were successful techniques for extracting various types of compounds from A. africana
Summary
Medicinal herbs are rich treasure troves of many bioactive compounds which provide important remedies for chronic disorders and ailments [1,2]. Popularly known as “Leopard Orchid” is one such species which is highly prized globally because of its multifaceted medicinal attributes [6] It has been used by various tribes across the African continent, by the Mpika tribe of Zimbabwe and Zulus of South Africa [6,7,8]. High rates of deforestation and over-collection have severely depleted the natural populations of A. africana, making it rare, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has declared it “vulnerable”. It has been listed in the red list of rare, endangered and threatened (RET) plants [9]. To envisage and unlock the large medicinal uses of this unexplored orchid taxa, planned usage of plant tissue culture-based biotechnological approaches provides a sustainable alternative, sufficing the aspects of conservation as well as commercial exploitation [10,11]
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