Comparative Quantitative Screening of Secondary Phytoconstituents from the leaves extract of Sterculia foetida Linn

In developing countries like India, more than 60 percentage of the population relies only on the traditional
medicine in order to meet their physical conditions. Traditional medicine has been more commonly practiced in
ayurvedic treatment without knowing the knowledge of the actual secondary constituents present in the plant
material. Secondary constituents present in the plants play an important role in healing and curing various
human diseases. The first and foremost step in in vitro drug designing was the screening of phytoconstituents of
the traditional plants. Through literature survey on traditional plant, Sterculia foetida was a frequently used plant
for its high medicinal properties. To our knowledge, this current investigation was the first attempt to screen the
amount of phytoconstituents present in the leaves of Sterculia foetida using five different solvent (hexane,
chloroform, methanol, ethyl acetate and aqueous) based on their polarity. On comparative studies of the current
research, the results revealed that the methanol leaves extracted exhibit a high yield percentage of secondary
constituents when compared with other four solvents. Further identification, isolation of biocompounds present
in the methanol leaves could lead to a novel natural antioxidant which was used in preventing various diseases.