Preliminary Studies on the Seed Oil of Caryota mitis: Proximate Composition, Phytochemical Screening and Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity

There are many varieties of seeds and nuts that can produce oils for food, nutraceuticals, skin care prod-ucts, aromatherapies, fuels and industrial lubricants. In this present study, the oil from the seed of Caryota mitis was extracted by soxhlet extraction and investigated to promote its quality aspects for biodiversity. The structural characterization of the oil was carried out using physico-chemical analyses and spectroscopic means such as FR-IR, 1H and 13C-NMR as well as mass spectral data. The phytochemical screening of the oil from Caryota mitis seed species revealed the presence of phytosterols, triterpenes, alkaloids, flavonoids and saponins. The proximate analysis showed the moisture content to be 42%, while crude fibre, carbohydrate, crude fat, crude protein and ash content was found to be 34.30%, 11.92%, 5.30%, 4.64% and 1.84% respectively on dry matter basis. The mineral content determination revealed the presence of iron (3.10 ± 0.02 mg/kg), manganese (0.11 ± 0.01 mg/kg), sodium (154.15 ± 1.98 mg/kg) and potassium (127.04 ± 1.21 mg/kg) while cadmium, nickel and lead were not detected. The in vitro antimicrobial screening on the oil, showed that it has promising antimicrobial potential on the organism tested but it was not as active as the clinical standards used. This oil is therefore, a candidate for further study in terms of the cytotoxicity profile and its ability to be used as functional food for proper exploration of its nutraceutical endowment.