SCREENING FOR PHYTOCHEMICALS AND FTIR ANALYSIS OF MYRISTICA DACTYLOIDS FRUIT EXTRACTS Short Communication P. RAJIV*, A. DEEPA, P. VANATHI, D. VIDHYA Department of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Eachanari post, Coimbatore 641021, Tamil Nadu, India Email: rajivsmart15@gmail.com Received: 02 Feb 2016 Revised and Accepted: 12 Nov 2016 ABSTRACT Objective: The present investigation focus on screening of phytochemicals and FT-IR analysis of Myristica dactyloids fruit extracts. The fruit extracts were prepared using five different solvents. Methods: The phytochemical analysis and FT-IR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) analysis were performed using standard methods. Results: The results reveals that the alkaloids, steroids, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, proteins, carbohydrates, cardio glycosides and saponins were present in methanolic extract when compared to other solvent extracts. FT-IR analysis shows the presence of different functional groups such as carboxylic acids, aromatics, alkanes, alcohols, phenols, aliphatic amines, alkenes and amine groups in the fruit extracts. Conclusion: The study concluded that the methanolic extract (M. dactyloides fruit) has potential bioactive compounds. Keywords: Myristica dactyloids, Methanol extract, Phytochemicals, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) © 2017 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4. 0/) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ijpps.2017v9i1.11053 Medicinal plants are a significant part of natural wealth. They serve as vital therapeutic agents as well as valuable raw materials for manufacturing numerous traditional and modern medicines [1]. Today a number of chemicals obtained from plants are used as vital drugs in more countries in the world [2]. Secondary metabolites from plants are referred to as phytochemicals which are naturally occurring and biologically active compounds that have the potential to prevent diseases. Evaluation of the phytochemical constituents of a medicinal plant is considered to be the main step in medicinal plant research [3]. Phytochemicals with adequate antibacterial activity are reported for the treatment of bacterial infections [4]. In current years, Indian medicinal plants have been investigated by researchers for pharmacological activity. Myristica dactyloides belongs to Myristicaceae As traditional medicine plays an important role in developing new plant based drugs and M. dactyloides is an important medicinal plant, the present study was aimed to analyse the phytochemicals and functional groups of M. dactyloides fruit extracts, which will be useful for characterization purpose of various phytoconstituents. family. The fruit contains oil-cells frequently with phenolic and myristicin. Myristica dactyloides fruits of the plant contains many volatile oil compounds (a-pinene, camphene, b-pinene, sabinene, myrcene, a-phellandrene, a-terpinene, limonene, 1, 8-cineole, y-terpinene, linalool, terpinen-4-ol, safrole, methyl eugenol and myristicin). These oil are used to treat diseases like flatulency, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, chronic bowel complaints, spermatorrhoea, impotency, amenorrhoea, menorrhagia, dysmenorrheal, ulcers, splenic disorders, rheumatism, asthma, colic, flatulence and dyspepsia [5]. It has pharmacological measures such as aromatic, stimulant, sedative, antiemetic and spasmolytic. Traditionally M. dactyloides seed paste was used for treating dysentery [6]. All the chemicals and solvents were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich, India. M. dactyloides fruits were collected from local markets of Tirupur district, Tamil Nadu, India (11.1800 ° N, 77.2500 ° E). 10 gram of fruits was taken in clean sterile soxhlet apparatus and extracted with gradient solvent system by aqueous (100 °C), petroleum ether (40 °C), ethyl acetate (77 °C), methanol (65 °C) and ethanol (78 °C) using hot soxhlet extraction method [7]. After extraction, the extracts were dried. From that extracts were made with suitable concentrations solvents for further analysis. The screening was performed with some modifications from the method of Harborne [8]. A small quantity fruit extracts were mixed with KBr. The functional groups were analysed using Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) (Shimadzu) in the region 4000–400 cm -1 Table 1 shows the phytochemical screening of various fruit extracts. Steroids were present in all the extracts. Phenols and Flavonoids were present in ethanol and methanol extracts. Proteins were present in ethanol, methanol, ethyl acetate and aqueous extracts. Cardio glycosides were observed in all the extracts except aqueous extract. Alkaloids were present only in methanolic extracts. The similar results were obtained from F. religiosa and F. bengalensis [9]. . Table 1: Phytochemical screening of M. dactyloides fruit (+: present; -: absent) Fruit extracts S. No. Phytochemicals Ethanol Methanol Petroleum Ether Ethyl Acetate Aqueous 1. Alkaloids - + - - - 2. Flavonoids + + - - - 3. Steroids + + + + + 4. Phenol + + - - - 5. Proteins + + - + + 6. Carbohydrates + + - + - 7. Cardio glycosides + + + + - 8. Saponins + + + + - International Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences ISSN- 0975-1491 Vol 9, Issue 1, 2017