ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Qualitative and Quantitative Phytochemical Screening of Tinospora cordifolia (Willd.)

Background: T. cordifolia contains a lot of secondary metabolites which are produced from various parts of the plant. They have their specificity in many diseases to cure. By considering the importance of T. cordifolia as medicinal plant to investigate the phytochemical properties.

Results: The preliminary phytochemical study was carried out to identify the presence of different phytochemicals and the results revealed the presence of Carbohydrates, Glycosides, Proteins, amino acids, Alkaloids, Flavonoids, Phenolic compounds, Tannins, Saponins, steroids and triterpenoids. When we compare the presence of phytocompounds in different solvents, methanol and aqueous extracts revealed the presence of more phytoconstituents followed by petroleum ether and chloroform solvents. The quantitative analysis of phytochemicals such as Flavonoids, phenols, alkaloids, tannins and saponins were also estimated from methanol extract by various methods. Total phenolic content of methanolic extract of the T. cordifolia was found to be 6.53mg/g. Total flavonoid content was found to be 4.07mg/g, alkaloid content was 5.62mg/g and the tannin content was found to be 5.83 mg/g. Saponin content was 5.02mg/g. The results revealed that the phenol content was more in stem extract of T. cordifolia and it was followed by tannins, alkaloids, flavonoids, and saponins. FT-IR analysis was performed to identify the various functional groups of the biomolecules found in the methanolic stem extract of the plant.

Conclusions: The results of present study revealed the presence of medicinally important constituents in Tinospora cordifolia. Traditional medicine practice is recommended strongly that further work should be carried out to isolate, purify and characterize the bioactive compounds responsible for the activity of these plants.