Yehualashet et al Journal of Drug Delivery & Therapeutics; 2014, 4(4), 10-13 10 © 2011-14, JDDT. All Rights Reserved ISSN: 2250-1177 CODEN (USA): JDDTAO Available online on 15.07.2014 at http://jddtonline.info Journal of Drug Delivery and Therapeutics Open access to Pharmaceutical and Medical research © 2014, publisher and licensee JDDT, This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, provided the original work is properly cited RESEARCH ARTICLE QUANTITATIVE DETERMINATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF EXTRACTION CONDITIONS FOR EMBELIN IN EMBELIA SCHIMPERI BY UV-VIS SPECTROMETRY Yehualashet Belete*, Yared Debebe, Abiy Abebe, Temesgen Menberu and Asfaw Debella Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), Traditional and Modern Medicine Research Directorate, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia INTRODUCTION Parasitic helminthics affect animals and man, causing considerable hardship and stunted growth. Most diseases caused by helminthics are of chronic, debilitating nature; they probably cause more morbidity and greater economic and social deprivation among humans and animals than any single group of parasites. The high cost of modern anti-helminthics has limited the effective control of parasitic helminthics 1 . In some cases widespread intensive use of low quality anti-helminthics has led to development of resistance and hence a reduction in the usefulness of available anti- helminthics 2-3 . The use of alternate drugs has also been advocated as a measure to avoid the development of resistant strains of helminthic parasites, and as a means of reducing the cost of controlling helminthic diseases 3- 4 . The emergence of resistant strains of pathogenic helminthics has stimulated the desire to search for additional chemotherapeutic agents that might allow more efficient control of helminthic parasites 5 . The use of plants for the treatment of various diseases is universal and has been practiced by many people for many years. During the last decade, the use of traditional medicine has expanded globally and has gained popularity. It has not only continued to be used for primary health care of the poor in developing countries, but has also been used in countries where conventional medicine is predominant in the national health care system (WHO, 2000). Embelia schimperi vatke belonging to the family Myrisinaceae, is the most widely used plant. Literature revealed an overflow of reports on the pharmacological efficacy of the extracts of the Myrisinaceae species as anti-helminthics and other activities. Embelia schimperi (Enkoko in Amharic) is scandent or climbing shrub which reaches the height of 2-13 meters 6 . It has branches with prominent lenticels. Fruit decoction is useful in fevers and diseases of chest and skin. Infusion of roots is used for cough and diarrhea. Aqueous extract of the fruits showed antibacterial and anti-fertility activities 7 . Seeds were found to possess antibiotic and anti-tubercular properties. A gum obtained from the plant is used as a warming remedy in the treatment of dysmenorrheal. Decoction of the leaves is used as a blood purifier. The fruit, 5-8mm in diameter, is orange yellow, reddish– green to red in color when ripen. Each fruit often has one seed that has a diameter of 4.5-7mm. It is brown in color with irregular orange markings when ripen 8 . * Correspondence to: Yehualashet Belete, Email: yehualashete.belete3@gmail.com , Phone No: +251-910205947. ABSTRACT: Embelin is a unique chemical compound found in nature, composed of quinone moiety resembling Coq10 (Ubiquinones), having ketone and hydroxy groups with an aliphatic chain. An Optimum solvent for extracting Embelin from Embelia schimperi and its simultaneous determination of the content of Embelin in the extract has been performed using UV-VIS spectrometry. The identification of Embelin spot obtained from hot ethyl acetate extract of the seed is confirmed by Nuclear Magnetic Spectroscopy (NMR). A plot of peak absorbance versus concentration of Embelin was found to be linear over the range of 3-12 μg/ml. The limit of detection was 0.11μg/ml and the limit of quantitation was 0.37 μg/ml. Extraction conditions were also optimized for the best possible extraction of Embelin from the fruits of Embelia schimperi in different solvent polarity like n-hexane, carbon tetrachloride, diethyl ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, propanol and ethanol. The determination of Embelin in various solvent extract exhibited a mean content of 0.66-5.79 % w/w. Carbon tetrachloride and ethyl acetate was found to be best for the highest possible recovery of the analyte, Embelin. The developed UV method was validated in terms of precision, accuracy, stability, LOD and LOQ Keywords: Embelia schimperi, Embelin, spectrometry, extraction