An Assessment of Ethnomedicinal Use, Chemical Constituents Analysis and Bioactivity Evaluation on High Altitude Medicinal Plant Delphinium brunonianum of Manang District

Abstract

The medicinal plant Delphenium brunonianum collected from Manang district, Nepal has been selected for its study on ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemical investigation and bioactivity evaluation. This plant is found to be used extensively by the community for the treatment of fever, headache, stomachache and poison removal. From phytochemical investigation, four known compounds namely ?-amyrin (1), ?-sitosterol (2), ?-sitosterol glucoside (3) and anthriscifoldine (4) have been isolated from methanol extract of D. brunonianum. Compound 1 is triterpene, 2 and 3 are sterols, whereas, 4 is a diterpenoid alkaloid. The structures of all compounds were determined with modern spectroscopic techniques including 1D- and 2D- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance techniques and comparison with literature data. The extract and all compounds exhibited antibacterial properties with respect to the zone of inhibition and minimum inhibitory concentration against Bacillus subtilis, staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aureginous, Escherchia coli and Salmonella flexinarie. Compound 4 was found to be more active than other compounds, and even than the standards ampicillin and gentamicin in most of the tested bacteria.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njst.v12i0.6488

Nepal Journal of Science and Technology 12 (2011) 111-118