Isolation and Characterization of Natural Products from Siphonochilus aethiopicus

Abstract

Plants have formed the basis of traditional medicinal systems that have been in existence for thousands of years. Traditional medicines play an important role in protecting, maintaining and restoring the health of people. Therefore, information on folk medicinal uses of plants has in latter times received an intense renewed interest as a source in the search for potential new therapeutic agents. The aim of this study was to isolate and identify natural compounds from Siphonochilus aethiopicus which is a species from the Zingiberaceae family and is one of the most popular medicinal plants in South Africa. This species is used extensively in traditional African medicine for pain relief, asthma, coughs, colds, headaches, dysmenorrhoea and influenza. Extraction of leaves and rhizomes were performed sequentially with hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, methanol and water. The presences of organic compounds were screened using chromatogtaphic techniques. The screening revealed similarities between the leaves and rhizomes extracts which implies that in order to improve the sustainability of the plants only leaves need to be harvested. All HPLC chromatograms except for the methanol extract of leaves have shown prominent peak. Moreover, the HPLC results confirm that same compounds are present in both leaves and rhizomes. The antimicrobial activity of the rhizome aqueous extract was carried out against Gram positive (Staphylococcus aureus, Mycobacterium smegmatis) and Gram negative (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) bacteria as well as fungus (Candida albicans). GC NMR and MS techniques were used for structural elucidation.