Phytochemical Screening and In vitro Antioxidant Studies of Stem Bark Extracts of Vitellaria paradoxa (Gaertn.) Sapotaceae

Abstract

Vitellaria paradoxa, which belongs to the family Sapotaceae, is a medicinal plant with vast use in traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases such as cancer, fungal and bacterial infection. This research is aimed to carry out phytochemical screening and investigate the antioxidant potential of the stem bark extracts of V. paradoxa. The powdered stem bark was extracted successively by maceration using n-hexane, ethyl acetate and ethanol. The preliminary phytochemical screening was carried out using standard procedures while the antioxidant activity of the extracts was tested qualitatively by TLC Bioautography method and quantitatively using Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) assay, where ascorbic acid and water were used as positive and negative control respectively. The results showed that n-hexane extract contains steroid/triterpenes, diterpenes and cardiac glycosides, while in ethyl acetate extract steroids/triterpenes, alkaloids, saponins, tannins, phenolic compounds, flavonoids, cardiac glycosides, anthraquinones, carbohydrates were found. The qualitative antioxidant test showed that n-hexane extract does not have ferric reducing power while in the quantitative FRAP assay, ethyl acetate and ethanol extracts were found to have similar activity and compared well with the standard drug. The highest absorbance (reductive power) for ethyl acetate extract was 0.62, ethanol (0.57) and standard drug (0.70). Based on the results obtained, the plant is an effective antioxidant, hence, a potential source of drugs for diseases associated with oxidative stress such as cancer.