Isolation and Characterization of Secondary Metabolite from the leaves Aspilia Africana (Pers.) C. D. Adams (Asteraceae)

Abstract

Aspilia africana is a medicinal plant used traditionally for treating various diseases. Phytochemical investigation of the methanol extract of the leaves has led to the isolation of squalene (hexamethyl-2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22-tetracosahexa-ene) from the leaves of A. Africana and is known to possess significant antimicrobial activity, it has not been known to be previously isolated from Aspilia Africana. The structure of the component was elucidated based on the NMR and MS techniques and by comparison of their experimental data with literature. The purified compound was obtained by chromatographic method.