SCREENING OF SECONDARY METABOLITES IN SOME MEDICINAL PLANTS FROM CUDDALLORE DISTRICT

Abstract

Objective: Plants play a major role in healing diseases because out of thousands species of plants, only 1- 10% of them are yet employed by man for effective therapeutic measure. Plant extracts have been proven scientifically for their biological activities. It is expected that bioactive compounds in plant extracts showing target sites will be more effective against drug resistant microbial pathogens. Thus, the main theme of our work was to check for the occurrence of different secondary metabolites in the herbal plants used by traditional practitioners of Cuddallore district, Tamil Nadu, India. Materials and Methods: Phytochemical screening of 75 plants were done for the occurrence of carbohydrates, alkaloids, proteins, glycosides, reducing sugar, aminoacids, steroids, phytosterol, terpenoids, anthroquinones, saponin, flavanoids, betacyanin, anthocyanin, starch, cardiac glycosides, tannin and phenol using standard methods. Results: Among the total 75 plants tested, Coccinia grandis, aqueous extract was found to contain maximum of 11 compounds: carbohydrates, alkaloids, proteins, reducing sugar, aminoacids, steroids, terpenoids, saponin, flavanoids, betacyanin and tannin. Coccinia grandis shows the occurrence of alkaloids, flavanoids, saponins, terpenoids while phenol and phytosterol are absent, which was not supported fully by the earlier work by the occurrence of alkaloids, flavanoids, saponins, terpenoids including the phenol and phytosterol. Conclusion: The result suggests that the secondary metabolite in plants depends on nature of plant material, its origin, degree of processing, moisture content and particle size. Coccinia grandis has found wider medicinal application and stresses their use in drug development.