Abstract

A STUDY ON PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF CRYPTOMERIA JAPONICA

Pramod Kumar Ojha*, Jyoti Rawat, Kundan Prasad and Bipin Chandra Joshi

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Abstract

Medicinal plants contain some organic compounds which provide definite physiological action on the human body and these bioactive substances include tannins, alkaloids, carbohydrates, terpenoids, steroids and flavonoids. These compounds are synthesized by primary or rather secondary metabolism of living organisms. Essential oils (EO) from the Japanese cedar, Cryptomeria japonica, has various medicinal properties, including antibacterial and antioxidant activity. The plant C. japonica leaves extracted by hydro distillation method for 6 hours using Clevenger apparatus. The oil was analyzed by Gas Chromatography-Mass spectrophotometry (GC-MS). Total fifty one compounds were identified constituting 98.7% of the total oil. The main compounds were α- Kaurene (27.52%), α-pinene (12.41%), Sabinene (11.06%), Cadin-4-en-10-ol (6.02%), L-4- terpineneol (5.73%), Elemol (5.00%), Myrcene (4.34%), Limonene (3.50%) Camphene (1.75%) and Bornyl acetate (1.44%). The samples showed antioxidation activity and have IC50 value of 51.36 in C. japonica extract. The results obtained in the present study suggest that an essential oil possesses strong medicinal activities can be utilized for the treatment of various diseases.

Keywords: Cryptomeria japonica, phytochemical analysis, essential oil, GC-MS.