Biological and Phytochemical Studies on the leaves of Caesalpinia decapetala (Roth)

The present correspondence endeavours to assess the biological and phytochemical studies about on the leaves of Caesalpinia decapetala (Roth) fabaceae family collected from forest area of Tamilnadu, India.

The crude drug was successively extracted by Soxhlet assembly using Petroleum ether, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and methanol as solvents. Preliminary phytochemical screening of different extracts was carried out using several color and precipitative chemical reagents as per described methods.. Antioxidant activity of the extracts was evaluated using DPPH as standard Apart from DPPH method, ferric reduction method and H₂O₂ scavenging method assay were also used for evaluating its antioxidant activity.

Preliminary phytochemical screening of C. decepetala leaves showed the presence of alkaloids, glycosides, phenols, phytosterols, saponins and flavonoids crude drug. C. decapetala leaf extracts exhibited marked dose dependent antibacterial activity in vitro against tested bacteria. It has also shown potent antioxidant activity.

Various phytochemicals were found to be present in C. decepetala leaves. Methanolic extract of C. decapetala leaves exhibited better antioxidant in vitro and can be used as a good therapeutic approach for disease management and therapy. Further studies on isolation of phyto-constituents and both in vitro and in vivo evaluation of pharmacological activities of isolated bioactive constituents of the crude drug are recommended as future works.