RAMASHISH KUMAR, ANIRUDDHA SAHA, DIPANWITA SAHA AND SANAJ KUMAR DAS
Abstract
Xanthium strumarium L. is commonly found as a weed mainly in roadside, railway track hedges and horticultural crops. The whole plant parts of X. strumarium extracts use as traditional medicine for the treatment of poisonous bites of insects, malaria, cancer, wounds headache, rheumatism, tuberculosis, bacterial and fungal infections. Plant synthesizes numerous pharmacologically bioactive sesquiterpenes. Very little antifungal potential of sesquiterpenes has been reported earlier. This is the first report of antifungal activity of 8-epi-xanthatin-1?,5?-epoxide. The objective of this study includes isolation and characterization of chemical constituents and In vitro evaluation of antifungal activity from the leaves of X. strumarium extract. The active components were detected on a thin layer chromatographic (TLC) plate after exposure of UV 254 nm light and followed by purification using silica gel column chromatography. Two sesquiterpenes, 8-epi-xanthatin (Ahn et al., 1995) and 8-epi-xanthatin-1??,5?-epoxide (Chandel, et al., 2012) were characterized and their structures were elucidated by IR, NMR (1H and 13C) and ESI-MS spectroscopy data analysis. The antifungal activity was assessed by agar diffusion, TLC bioautography, and micro-dilution bioassay methods. Both Compounds 1 & 2 exhibited antifungal potential.