Abstract
Rauwolfia vomitoria Aftzel belong to the family of Apocynacea with a common name serpent wood and Igbo name as akanta. It is used traditionally to treat hypertension and rheumatoid arthritis. The present study deals with GC-MS determination and FT-IR analysis of methanolic root extract of the named plant. Exactly thirty phytochemical constituents have been identified by comparing the chromatogram peek values of unknown compounds with entries in NIST database. The major bioactive compounds were 2-Formyl-9-[b-d-ribofuranosyl]hypoxanthine (8.63%), 5-Cyclopropylcarbonyloxypenta-decane (5.58%), 1,2,5-Oxadiazol-3-carboxamide-4,4’-azobis-2,2’-dioxide (4.47%), 1-(5-Bicylco[2.2.1]heptyl)ethylamine (3.66%), 1-Adamantanemethylamine,a-methyl- (2.22%), Diphenylephrine (1.26%), Imidazole,2-amino-5-[(2-carboxy)vinyl]- (0.85%), Spiro[androst-5-ene-17,1’-Cyclobutan]-2’-one,3-hydroxy-,(3b,17b)- (0.82, and Cyclohexan-1,4,55-triol-3-one-1-carboxylic acid (0.65%). The FTIR spectrum confirmed the presence of alkyl halides, alcohols, phenols, secondary alcohols, tertiary alcohols, aromatic ethers, aldehydes, ketones, aliphatic nitro compound, aromatic organophosphorus compounds, aromatic compounds, carboxylic acid derivatives, alkenes, saturated ketones, and alkanes. Hence, this study offers bases of employing R. vomitoria as herbal alternative for the treatment of various diseases. Key words: Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), phytochemical, Rauwolfia vomitoria Aftzel.
Highlights
Developing countries most especially the rural areas are constantly being inundated by infectious diseases and attempts to manage these ailments with conventional drugs have posed mankind with a lot of health consequences
The results of gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry (MS)/FT-IR and biological activities of identified compounds of methanol extract of roots of R. vomitoria are presented in Figures 1 and 2 and Tables 1 to 3
A total of thirty compounds were identified from the methanol root extract of R. vomitoria
Summary
Developing countries most especially the rural areas are constantly being inundated by infectious diseases and attempts to manage these ailments with conventional drugs have posed mankind with a lot of health consequences. Herbal medicines are safer than synthetic medicines because the phytochemicals in the plant extract target the biochemical pathway. These bioactive compounds that contribute to the pharmacological efficacy of medicinal plants have recently been identified with relatively expensive and often laborious techniques such as gas chromatography (GC) combined with specific detections schemes (Eisenhauer et al, 2009). Gas chromatography combined with mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) can identify pure compounds present at less than 1 ng biological specimen and quantification purpose (Liebler et al, 1996). For most common plant compounds, the spectrum of an unknown compound can be identified by comparison to a library of known compounds (Griffiths and Haseth, 1986)
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