Phytochemical screening and isolation of fatty acid and fatty acid esters of triterpene from root extract of Vernonia auriculifera grown in Sidama zone, Southern Ethiopia

Vernonia auriculifera is well known for its use in traditional medicine in several countries of tropical regions of the world including Ethiopia. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to conduct phytochemical screening tests on extracts of the root of Vernonia auriculifera plant species and also to isolate compounds from the extracts. The root of V. auriculifera was extracted with three solvent systems (n-exane, dichloromethane/methanol (50:50% by volume) and methanol) using maceration technique and sequential extraction approach. All the extracts were subjected to phytochemical screening tests following standard procedures reported in literatures. The preliminary phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids, phenols, steroids, glycosides, terpenoids and tannins in the crude extracts of dichloromethane and dichloromethane: methanol. The crude extract of n-hexane showed the presence of saponins, flavonoids, phenols, steroids, glycosides, terpenoids and tannins. On the other hand, the crude extract of methanol revealed the presence of all the secondary metabolites listed above except tannins. The dichloromethane/methanol extract was subjected to column chromatographic separation to afford two compounds namely Oleic acid (AY-4) and β-amyrin palmitate (AN-1). The structures of the compounds were elucidated based on spectroscopic (FTIR, 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR) data and comparison with literature reports.