DOI: https://doi.org/10.55373/mjchem.v26i6.158

Keywords: Medicinal plants; ethnomedicine; Fourier transform infrared; Nuclear magnetic resonance; phytochemicals

Abstract

Neolamarckia cadamba (Kadamba) is used in ethnomedicine for the treatment of various illnesses. However, there is limited information available regarding its phenolic composition and antioxidant properties. The study assessed the polyphenol profile and phytochemical properties of leaf and bark extracts of N. cadamba using attenuated total reflectance-fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The antioxidant properties, including total phenolic content, DPPH free radical scavenging assay, and ferric reducing antioxidant power, were evaluated. Multivariate data analysis (MVDA), via partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and orthogonal partial least square-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), was conducted to evaluate the polyphenol profile of the leaf and bark extracts. This study shows that the bark extract has higher TPC value than the leaf extract (58 ± 0.31 mg GAE/g DW and 41±0.36 mg GAE/g DW, respectively). The inhibitory concentration (IC50¬) values of the N. cadamba leaf and bark extracts measured are comparable with the synthetic antioxidants BHT and Trolox. The ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) values for the leaf and bark extracts are in the range of 24 ± 0.936 μM FeSO¬4/g DW to 72 ± 0.422 μM FeSO¬4¬/g DW. These findings suggest that the bark extract has potential in the nutraceutical industry.