STUDY ON ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND ISOLATION SAPONIN FROM THE LEAVES OF CORDYLINE FRUTICOSA

Abstract

Cordyline fruticosa, belongs to the Cordyline genus, thus the Asparagaceae family, is distributed in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. This plant has planted for treatment of digestive, circulatory, and respiratory diseases. In this study, the antimicrobial activity was carried out on the aqueous-ethanolic extract of the leaves of C. fruticosa. The result showed that the extracts at the concentration of 1.0 and 1.4 g/mL can inhibit the growth of  S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, L. plantarum, E. coli and C. freundii, but not for L. plantarum, E. coli and C. freundii at the concentration of 0.6 g/mL. The chromatographical isolation was further carried out on the extract at the concentration of 1.4 g/mL affording one steroidal saponin. The spectroscopic analysis (NMR) and mass spectroscopy (ESI-MS) was performed on this compound, further establishing the structure as 5α-spirost-(25)27-ene-1β,3β-diol 1-O-α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1→2)-α-L-arabinopyranoside. Further experiments were suggested to isolate other components in the ethanolic extract from the leaves of C. fruticosa, and in combination with biological evaluations on those compounds in order to complete the chemotaxonomic data of C. fruticosa and the Cordyline genus.