GC-MS Analysis and Antifungal Activity of Morinda Lucida Extract

Abstract

The increasing climatic and environmental change and injudicious use of antibiotics has led recently to increase fungal infections resistance to available pharmaceutical antifungal drugs. Consequently, research for alternative local medicinal source of plant origin is on the increase, thus, the aim of this research work is to determine the chemical constituents and antifungal activity of Morinda lucida extracts. The Morinda lucida leaves were collected, dried under shade, pulverized and extracted with hexane, ethylacetate and methanol solvents using soxhlet extractor in order of increasing polarity. The three crude extracts were concentrated using rotary evaporator and the phytochemical screening was conducted according to standard methods while the antifungal analysis was conducted using the agar well diffusion method. Vacuum liquid chromatography was used for isolation of the oil from the hexane extract, which was characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The result shows the presence of glycoside, saponins, phenolics, alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, eugenols and flavonoids with the exception of tanins in all the extracts. The hexane, ethylacetate and methanol extracts of Morinda lucida exhibit moderate, strong, and very strong antifungal inhibitory activities respectively against the tested fungi strains of Candida auris, Candida albicans, Aspergillus fumigatus, Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Epidermophyton floccosum. The GC-MS analysis of the hexane extract shows 48 compounds including hexadecanoic acid methyl ester, and squalene among others, which have reported antifungal activity. This study corroborates the use of the plants as antifungal agents by traditional people.