Publications

The study of natural products hasgiven rise to the discovery of a variety of useful drugsfor effective management of several diseases . Phytochemical constituents of plants arefingered to be biologically active compounds responsible for different activities such asanalgesic, anti inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal and anticancer. Thus,assessment of phytochemical constituents of plants is of utmost importance in medic ine.There is however paucity of information on the comparative assessment of leaves andseeds of Datura stramonium D. stramonium ). The refore, the present study was carried outto compare the phytochemical constituents of D. stramonium leaves and seeds. E thanol wasused for the extraction using standard method. Phytochemical screening was performedusing various quantitative methods. The ratio of leaves versus seeds of phytochemicalquantitative analysis wa s as follows: saponins (65.25: 34.25 mg/g), alkalo ids (32.10: 71.28mg/g), flavonoids (44.24: 30.12 mg/g), terpenoids (32.68:30.20 mg/g), tannins(31.25:26.62), respectively. This implies that saponins were dominant compounds followedby flavonoids and terpenoids in leaves while alkaloids were the dominan t phytochemical inseeds. Based on our results, it is concluded that leaf and seed extracts of D. stramoniumhave varying concentrations of phytochemicals with the seed having higher concentrationof alkaloids justifying why the seed is more toxic than the leaves while leaf extract hadhighest concentration of saponins and flavonoids giving credence to the antioxidantproperty of the leaves . Good quantity of various phytochemicals in this plant justifies itstraditional use in the treatment of various disea ses.