QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE DETERMINATION OF SECONDARY METABOLITES OF 26 MEDICINAL PLANTS FROM SOUTHEASTERN OF EGYPT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Natural Products Unit, Department of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Desert Research Center, El-Matareya, Cairo, Egypt

2 Phytochemistry Unit, Department of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Desert Research Center, El-Matareya, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Samples of the 26 plants for the study were freshly obtained from the southeastern of Egypt, packed in paper bags and brought to the laboratory for further processing. 70% ethanolic extracts were prepared and subjected to phytochemical analysis of their secondary metabolites, both qualitatively (alkaloids, terpenoids, tannins, saponins, flavonoids and phenolics) and quantitatively (alkaloids, phenolics and flavonoids), in addition to elemental analysis. The qualitative evaluation showed the presence of all investigated phytocompound classes in most of the studied plants. Quantitative analysis revealed that the highest phenolics content (20.44 g %) was in Acacia tortilis Forssk. and the highest flavonoids content (14.26 g %) was in Matthiola arabica Boiss. Zygophyllum simplex L.  highly shared with 10.94% in alkaloids pool. Elemental profile for each plant was attained. The interest in the current investigation of these 26 medicinal plants was motivated by exploring new biologically active compounds resource.

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