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Volume 6, Issue 6 (Suppl)
Med Aromat Plants
ISSN: 2167-0412 MAP, an open access journal
Herbals Summit 2017
October 18-20, 2017
October 18-20, 2017 Osaka, Japan
3
rd
Global Summit on
Herbals & Traditional Medicine
Phytochemical studies of selected African medicinal plants
Wilfred T Mabusela
University of the Western Cape, South Africa
T
raditional medicine is a cultural practice with a long history inAfrica and in SouthAfrica it involves the use of approximately
3000 plants, out of a national biodiversity represented by about 30000 higher plant species. For most of these, there is very
little information about their phytochemical constituents, given that the therapeutic value of these plans is known to reside
in their phytochemical composition. Furthermore, for most of these plants, some of which are on the open market, there are
still no strict quality control reference data, which verifies the phytochemical profile of a particular plant sample. Hence the
purpose of this study is to broaden the knowledge on the phytochemical composition of medicinal plants, information which is
expected to facilitate an understanding of their mode of action, in terms of therapy and toxicity. Some medicinal plant species
from South Africa and other African countries were collected. Dried material samples were subjected to extraction using water
as well as a variety of organic solvents followed by chromatographic fractionation of the extracts obtained. Isolated compounds
were examined for their chemical structural features with the aid of nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy. Some
of the crude extracts and purified compounds were also studied for biological activity such as antioxidant activity, cytotoxicity
(using the brine shrimp lethality bioassay), for antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative and Gram positive bacteria as well
as fungal species and enzyme inhibition properties. Spectroscopic studies led to the identification of compounds belonging to
the following classes: flavonoids and terpenoid and flavonoid glycosides. Some extracts and isolated compounds displayed a
broad spectrum of biological activities.
Biography
Wilfred T Mabusela has completed his PhD from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, followed by two years of Postdoctoral studies at the same institution,
which extended his doctoral work on structural studies of plant polysaccharides. He has published more than 30 papers in reputable journals.
wmabusela@uwc.ac.zaWilfred T Mabusela, Med Aromat Plants 2017, 6:6 (Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/2167-0412-C1-014