Identification and Quantification of Bioactive Compounds Present in the Plant Vernonia amygdalina Delile using GC-MS Technique

We conducted structural elucidation studies on organic compounds from the plant Vernonia amygdalina Delile using 10% NaOH as extraction solvent. We identified the organic compounds in the plant extract using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis and we determined the abundance of the compounds present in the plant extract. We also observed the influence of the extraction solvent used (10% NaOH) on the kind of organic compounds recovered from the plant and we juxtaposed the relationship between the most abundant compounds present in the plant extract and their known pharmacological properties. Results showed that organic compounds such as methyl-2-O-benzyl-d-arabinofuranoside, phytol, hexadecanoic acid, ethyl ester, squalene and 9, 12, 15, octadecatrienoic acid are present abundantly (>85% abundance) in the plant extract while other organic compounds characterized in the plant with lesser abundance (<12% abundance) include N-[2-(dimethylamino)-5- pyrimidinyl] benzene sulfonamide, 9, 12, 15 and Octadecatrien-1-ol, p-Menth-4(8)-en-9-ol. The study showed that the extraction solvent used was able to recover compound classes such as organic acid esters and conjugated alkanols in larger quantities than other compound class. The findings of this study demonstrated that V. amygdalina contains organic compounds, which may serve as new drug leads of natural products origin and make it employable in modern pharmacological practices.