Isolation of Cerebroside from Gynura procumbens Leaves and Biological Activities of the Leaves Extracts

Abstract

Several plants have been used in folk medicine to treat various types of diseases. Gynura procumbens (G. procumbens), a medicinal plant is widely used in traditional treatment of many aliments due to the presence of potent bioactive components. In this study,G. procumbens leaves were extracted with three different polarities of solvents viz., ethyl acetate (EA), methanol (MeOH) and methanol-water (MeOH-H₂O). A cerebroside and a pure compound were isolated from the EA and MeOH crude extracts respectively. Antibacterial, antifungal activities and cytotoxicity of the crude extracts of G. procumbens leaves were investigated using six bacterial strains (three gram positive and three gram negative), one fungal strain and brine shrimp lethality bioassay, respectively. The EA extracts showed moderate antimicrobial activity, whereas MeOH and MeOH-H₂O extracts exhibited very minute sort of sensitivities. The MeOH-H₂O extract showed a significant cytotoxic activity having LC₅₀ of 3.98 μg/mL on the other hand EA and MeOH exhibited mild and moderate cytotoxic activities having LC₅₀ values of 63.10 and 4.47 μg/mL, respectively. These results demonstrate the presence of potential bioactive components in the studied crude extracts of the G. procumbens leaves.