Assay of Bioactive Compounds in Stored Kolanuts

Abstract

Kolanuts are widely consumed by humans. The medicinal and therapeutic potentials of plants are credited to their bioactive compounds. This study was aimed at investigating the bioactive compounds in kolanuts from Ifelodun and Odo-Otin Local Government Areas of Osun State, popular kolanut producing LGAs in Nigeria. The bioactive compounds were identified using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (CG-MS) to analyse crude extracts of the kolanuts using acetone:methanol (1:1 v/v) as the extractant. Twenty five (25) bioactive compounds were identified, with 9-Octadecenoic acid, methyl ester (32.91%) being the predominant compound. Six (6) of the bioactive compounds were common in all the kolanuts (caffeine, hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester, n-hexadecanoic acid, 9, 12-Octadecadienoic acid, methyl ester (z,z), methyl stearate, and phthalic acid, di(oct-3-yl) ester). Some of the bioactive compounds were identified only in the kolanuts from Ifelodun L.G.A. e.g. nonanoic acid, methyl-2-octylcyclopropene-1-heptanoate, 9-octadecanoic acid (z), 9-octadecanoic acid. Also, 11-octadecanoic acid, methyl ester (z), 2-chloroethyl linoleate, bicyclo (4.1.0) heptane, etc were present only in the kolants from Odo-Otin L.G.A. Out of the 25 bioactive compounds identified, only 12 have been reported to be present in kolanuts some of e.g. caffeine, n-Hexadecanoic acid, etc, while the remaining 13 have been reported in other plants other than kolanuts.

Keywords

• Kolanut
• bioactive compounds
• caffeine
• dodecanoic acid
• GC-MS