Abstract

IDENTIFICATION OF BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS OF RHIZOPHORA MUCRONATA POIR. LEAVES USING SUPERCRITICAL FLUID EXTRACTION AND GC-MS

Saranya Arumugam, Dinesh Palanisamy and Ramanathan Thirugnana Sambandam*

ABSTRACT

Rhizophora mucronata Poir. is the medicinally important mangrove plant belonging to the family Rhizophoraceae, commonly known as “red mangrove”. It is documented for its folk remedies to treat elephantiasis, haematoma, hepatitis, ulcer, angina, diarrhea, haemorrhage and febrifuge. The presence of diverse secondary metabolites has been reported from species of the R. mucronata. The aim of this study is to screen the phytocomponents present in the R. mucronata leaves and further analysis of the components present in it by GC-MS. Supercritical fluid (SCFE) was used to extract bioactive components from R. mucronata. The preliminary phytochemical analysis of SCFE-RM revealed the presence of alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, tannins, quinones, saponins, flavonoids, cardiac glycosides, phenols. The volatile compounds were identified according to their retention times and mass spectra by GC-MS. The GC-MS analysis provided peaks of sixteen different phytochemical compounds. N-Propyl 11 -Octadecenoate (15.32%), (4α-trans)-Decahydro-4α-methyl-1-methylene-7-(1-methylethylidene)-naphthalene (14.29%), Beta-Amyrin (12.79%), Gamma-Sitosterol (10.21%) were the predominant constituents in SCFE-RM. However, isolation of individual components would help to find new drugs.

Keywords: Rhizophora mucronata, Mangrove, Phytocomponents, GC-MS analysis.