QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE SCREENING OF GLIRICIDIA SEPIUM FOR ALKALOIDS, FLAVONOIDS AND PHENOLS

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE SCREENING OF GLIRICIDIA SEPIUM FOR ALKALOIDS, FLAVONOIDS AND PHENOLS

CHAPTER ONE

1.0       INTRODUCTION

Medicinal properties of plants always have interested people since ancient times. Different cultures around the world have a variety of medicinal traditions that include the use of plants and other plant products in curing different diseases [1]. A report of the World Health Organization tells that 80% of the world population mainly rely on traditional therapies which involve the use of plant extracts or their active substances [2]. Plant products remain the principal source of pharmaceutical drugs and agents used in traditional medicine [3]. With about half a million plants around the world, medicinal plants have a promising future [4].

Medicinal plants are considered as a rich resource of ingredients which can be used in drug development including pharmacopoeial, non- pharmacopoeial, or synthetic drugs [5]. The modern pharmaceutical industry itself still relies largely on the diversity of secondary metabolites in plants and secondary metabolites, of which at least 12,000 have been isolated; a number estimated to be less than 10% of the total [4].

In spite of enormous advances of modern scientific medicine, traditional medicine is still the primary form to treat diseases of majority of people in developing countries, even among those to whom western medicine is available, the number of people using one form or another of complementary of alternative medicine is rapidly increasing worldwide.

According to WHO (World Health Organisation) it was estimated that about 80% of population depends on the medicinal plants for their primary health care needs, even though the allopathic medicine is available. These kinds of changes may have deep impact on the safety and efficacy of the naturally originated drugs in the market.  Recent knowledge on the natural therapy which can overcome the side effects of allopathic medicine the current therapy is moving towards the natural therapy. The natural therapy includes treatment with medicinal plants, herbs etc.

At present no drug is proven to be effective without side effects. Major part of population in the country depends on medicinal plants for health care. Research teams in pharmaceutical fields are being focussed on the medicinal plants to separate and elute the principle compound from the plant, which helps for treating the diseases.

Gliricidia sepium belongs to the family Papilionaceae is a tree having large sizes, tall heights, large girths and seeds in pots. Gliricidia literally means “Rat poison”. Generally the trees survive and grow well under a wide range of climatic and adaptic conditions. Entire parts of tree-barks, roots, leaves etc. have been reported to be useful ethno medicinally [3]. Aqueous and organic extracts of plants have been used as wound-dressing, treatment of dysentery, mosquitoes repellant, fumigants [4], antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral as well as CNS depressant [5]. Plant parts have been a source of herbal medicine which has been shown to be  effective and about 80% of population depend on their use as primary health care [6].

Phytochemical screening is a method which exposes or reveals certain components or properties readily available in plants for bio-activity or ethno-medical applications. Plant  based antimicrobials has enormous therapeutic potential as they can serve the purpose with lesser side effects that are often associated with synthetic antimicrobials [7] Thus it is anticipated that phytochemical with adequate antibacterial efficiency can be used for the treatment of bacterial infections [8]. Antioxidants and antimicrobial properties of various extracts from many plants have recently been of great interest in both research and in food industry, because of their possible use as natural additives to replace synthetic antioxidants and antimicrobials with natural ones [9] Thus medicinal plants play an important role in the development of newer drugs because of their effectiveness, less side effects and relatively low cost when compared with synthetic drugs [10] The present study aims in exploring the phytochemical constituents, antibacterial and antifungal properties of the crude leaf extracts of Gliricidia sepium (L).

Gliricidia sepium known as Agunmaniye (in yoruba), Madre de Cacao (local) is a medium-size, semi-deciduous tree that typically grows to 10 m (33 ft) (occasionally reaching 15 m (50 ft)) in height, with a broad canopy (Nazli et al., 2011). According to the Agroforestry Database in 2009 and to De Boer et al (2005), G. sepium (Agunmaniye) has been shown to have high antifungal activity. G. sepium contains various phytochemicals like flavonoids, sterols, alkaloids, glycosides, tannins, saponins,(Sahin et al, 2004) medicarpin, coumarin, and coumaric acid have been isolated and characterized from the plant that showed antifungal and antibacterial properties (Jose and Reddy, 2010).

Phytcohemicals such as flavonoids, effectively controls fungal pathogen such as Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Terreros and Adriana., 2009). Medicarpin increases the release of phytoalexins (Soby et al., 2006) which is released by plants to combat pathogenic infection (Hasegawa et al., 2010). Coumarin and coumaric acids both prevent the entrance of nutrients into a fungal cell (Geweelly, 2009) thus resulting in the fungus’s cell lysis or death (Alvim et al., 2005). Saponins causes loss of membrane integrity (Zhang and Xu, 2006) and is lethal to fungal pathogens (De Lucca et al., 2006)

1.2       Aim of the Study

The aim of this study is to carry out a qualitative and quantitative screening of Gliricidia sepium for alkaloids, flavonoids and phenols

1.3       Objectives of the Study

1. The determine the qualitative screening of Gliricidia sepium for alkaloids, flavonoids and phenols
2. To determine the quantitative screening of Gliricidia sepium for alkaloids, flavonoids and phenols