GC-MS analysis, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of extracts from Ficus mucoso leaves

Abstract

The phytochemical screening of n-hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of Ficus mucoso leaves confirmed the presence of alkaloids, steroids, terpenoids, flavonoids, saponins, anthraquinones, tannins, glycosides, carbohydrates and fats and oils. The ethyl acetate extract of the leaves had minimal antioxidant activity, exhibiting DPPH free radical scavenging property with IC50 of 701.6 μM, using DPPH antioxidant assay. Six bacteria strains namely; Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomona aeruginosa, Salmonella typhii and Klebsiellae pneumonae and four fungal strains namely; Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger, penicillium notatum and Rhizopus stolonifer were tested against the three extracts and they showed good inhibitory activities against the tested strains. Gas chromatography-Mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) characterization of the extracts revealed the presence of sixteen (16), fifteen (15) and fifteen (15) compounds in n-hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of Ficus mucoso leaves respectively. The principal constituent in the n-hexane extract was phytol with a relative abundance of 29.7% while the main constituents of the ethyl acetate and methanol extracts were phytol acetate and Naphthalene-1,2,3,5,6,7,8,8a-octahydro-1,8a-dimethyl-7-(1-methylethenyl) with relative abundance of 29.1% and 24.48% respectively.

Keywords: GC-MS analysis, antimicrobial, antioxidant, phytol, Naphthalene, 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,8a-octahydro-1,8a- dimethyl-7-(1-methylethenyl