PHYTOCHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL STUDIES ON SOME MEDICINAL PLANTS

Amina El-Kelany

doi:10.21608/ajps.2020.118379

Abstract

Biological studies on thirteen ethanolic plant extracts (Rosmarinus officinalis ,Ocimum basilicum , Moringa oleifera, Zingiber officinale, Curcuma longa, Nigella sativa ,Cinnamomum verum ,Salvia officinalis, Lepidium sativum, Foeniculum vulgare, Anethum graveolens, Ficus benghalensis and Cinnamomum camphora )revealed that four of them (Rosmarinus officinalis , Zingiber officinale, Cinnamomum verum and Cinnamomum camphora) were the best active against two bacterial species ; E. coli , S .aureus and one fungus species C. albicans. Also, their synergistic effects against E. coli, S. aureus and C. albicans were studied .So, the phytochemical studies were completed on these four plants . This study aimed to evaluate the chemical composition of the best active plant extracts. The chemical major content of Rosmarinus officinalis was eucalyptol (7.48%) , Zingiber officinale was gingerol (12.73%) , Cinnamomum verum was (E)- cinnamaldehyde (25.55 % ) and Cinnamomum camphora was eugenol ( 27 .35% ) . The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values varied from 0.625 to 2.5 mg/ml, for the S. aureus (gram positive bacteria) affected by Rosmarinus officinali, Zingiber officinale, Cinnamomum verum and Cinnamomum camphora. Respectively. C. albicans was the most effective microorganism by Cinnamomum verum and the least effective microorganism by Rosmarinus officinalis and Cinnamomum camphora. ethanolic extracts, as MIC ranged from 0.15 to 1.25 mg/ml.

Highlights

Medicinal plants are the richest bio-resource of drugs of traditional system of medicine, modern medicines, nutraceuticals, food supplements, folk medicines, pharmaceutical intermediaries and chemical entities for synthetic drugs (Ncube et al, 2008)
The Preliminary phytochemical screening of ethanolic extracts (96%) of the plants tabulated in Table 1 showed that Rosmaris officinalis contains tannins flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids and carbohydrates but it is free from resins, anthraquinons and saponins .The present results in agree with that of Andrade et al .(2018) as they reported that Rosmaris officinalis ethanolic extract contains tannins, polyphenol,flavonol,terpenoid and alkaloid
The present data were in accordance with those of Guo et al (2016) as they reported that the composition of Cinnamomum Camphora extract was determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analyses

Summary

Introduction

Medicinal plants are the richest bio-resource of drugs of traditional system of medicine, modern medicines, nutraceuticals, food supplements, folk medicines, pharmaceutical intermediaries and chemical entities for synthetic drugs (Ncube et al, 2008). Phytochemicals are non-nutritive plant secondary metabolites that have protective or disease preventive properties. Plants produce these chemicals to protect themselves but recent research demonstrates that many of these phytochemicals can protect humans and animals against diseases (Kumar et al, 2009)

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