PHYTOCHEMICAL, ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTISNAKE VENOM STUDIES OF THE METHANOL EXTRACT OF THE ROOT BARK OF PHYLLANTHUS MUELLERIANUS (KUNTZE) EXCELL

📄 Project Abstract

Phyllanthus muellerianus is distributed in secondary forests from Guinea-Bissau, Mali, West Cameroons and other parts of tropical Africa. It is a shrub or climber deciduous and occasionally arborescent. The root bark of this plant was extracted by maceration using methanol. The preliminary phytochemical screening of the methanol extract indicates the presence of terpenoids, flavonoids, tannins, saponins, alkaloids and carbohydrates. The methanol extract was then dissolved in water and partitioned with nhexane, ethyl acetate and n-butanol. The partitioned n-butanol fraction was subjected to column chromatography, gel filtration chromatography and then preparative thin layer chromatography to yield a brown pentasaccharide PA - -D-Glcp-(2 6)-[ -D-Fruf(1 2)]-D-Fruf-(1 4)-D-Glcp-(2 2)-D-Fruf and sucrose PX - -D-Glcp-(1 2)-D-Fruf which is whitish in colour. The structures of the compounds were resolved using UV, IR, 1D- and 2D-NMR spectral results. n-Butanol was also added to the dry methano...