Isolation and Characterization of Some Constituents of Ximenia Americana. L Bark

ABSTRACT

Ximenia Americana is considered one of medicinal plant which are

widely used especially in West of Sudan. This plant has been studied in

this research, which is collected from Nuba Mountains and Babanusa.

In part I of the present study, crude extracts of different parts of plant was

investigated for their biological activity. Preliminary investigations were

carried out to select the plant extracts of the highest activity for further

investigation. The extracts were screened for phytochemical constituents:

alkaloids, saponins, tannins, flavonoids, triterpenoids/sterols and

anthraquinones and assessed for their biological activities against four

Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria: Bacillus subtilis,

Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and

one fungi: Candida albicans by the agar diffusion method.

The second part of this study dealt with the evaluation of preliminary

screening and assessment results of the extracts. The Ximeniaamericana

bark was selected for further investigation based on its promising

biological activity. The bark material of the plant was extracted using

solvents with different polarities. The ethyl acetate extract of the bark

was selected for further fractionation based on antimicrobial activity

results.

Isolation of active compounds from the different extracts was carried out

using bioassay-guided fractionation. Selection of the active fractions for

further fractionation was carried out based on antimicrobial activity

results. Column chromatography monitored by TLC were used in

fractionation and isolation of pure compounds. Various techniques

including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), mass spectrometry (MS),

ultraviolet (UV), infrared (IR) spectrometry and GC/MS were used for

structure elucidation of the isolated compounds.