International Journal of Noni Research - Noni Family

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N. Mathivanan G. Surendiran Authors’ affiliation : N. Mathivanan G. Surendiran Centre for Advanced Studies in Botany, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai - 600 032. India. Correspondence to : N. Mathivanan Centre for Advanced Studies in Botany, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai, India. E-mail : prabhamathi@yahoo.com Chemical and biological properties of Morinda spp. Keywords : Hepatoprotective, M. citrifolia, M. pubscens Abstract : The present study was aimed to investigate various chemical and biological properties of M. citrifolia and M. pubescens. Chemical analyses of the fruit have revealed that most of the essential elements were present in higher amount in the fruits of M. citrifolia compared to M. pubescens. Manganese was present in high quantity in M. pubescens, whereas Calcium, Potassium, Phosphorus and Magnesium were found almost at par in both the fruits. The reducing sugars and lipids were present in high levels in the fruits of M. citrifolia whereas, the total soluble sugars, starch and crude fibers were high in M. pubescens. The natural antioxidant content was high in the fruit extracts of M. pubescens compared to M. citrifolia. The fruit extracts of M. citrifolia and M. pubescens effectively inhibited wide range of human and plant pathogens. The antimicrobial activity was more pronounced with M. citrifolia than M. pubescens. Further, the fruit extracts significantly inhibited the respiration rate in human and fungal pathogens. Both the fruit extracts showed excellent hepatoprotective effect against D-galactosamine intoxicated experimental rats. The fruit extracts of M. citrifolia and M. pubescens have also shown effective antidiabetic activity in alloxan induced experimental rats. This activity was more pronounced with M. pubescens than M. citrifolia. Introduction The genus Morinda is distributed worldwide (Wang et al., 2002) and the presence of as many as 80 different species has already been reported (Smith, 1988). Morinda citrifolia, a small tree, grows predominantly along the tropical coasts and is extensively being used in folk medicine. Its antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, antitumor, antidiabetes, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, immune enhancing activities have already been reported (Wang et al., 2002; Mathivanan et. al., 2005; 2006; Surendiran et al., 2006). Another related species, Morinda pubescens grows predominantly in vacant agricultural land and some of its medicinal properties were documented in the ancient literature. However, no scientific research has been carried out in our country on these two Morinda species and hence, the present study is focused to explore the potentials of M. Intl. J. Noni Res. 2007, 2(1-2) 62
63 Intl. J. Noni Res. 2007, 2(1-2) citrifolia and M. pubesens. The chemical and biological properties of both the Morinda species were investigated and reported in this article. Materials and Methods Chemical properties Preparation of plant extracts of Morinda. The fruits of M. citrifolia were collected from the trees located in the coastal area of Seruthala in Kerala and M. pubescens fruits were obtained from the tree in the Botany Field Research Laboratory, University of Madras, Madhuravoyal, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. They were washed with tap water and rinsed with distilled water and air dried for 1 h. The fruits were ground to powder using pestle and mortar and stored at -20°C until use. For preparation of plant extracts, five different solvents viz., petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, chloroform, ethanol and water were mixed separately with the fruit powder at 2:1 ratio (w/v) and kept over night in shaken condition. These extracts were filtered through Whatman No.1 filter paper and dried in vacuuo and used for further studies. Protein estimation The protein content in the fruit extracts of M. citrifolia and M. pubescens was estimated by the standard dye binding method of Bradford (1976) using the following two different extraction procedures. 1. Standard aqueous extraction 2. Extraction using antioxidant The sugar, starch, lipid and crude fiber content in the fruits of M. citrifolia and M. pubescens was analyzed using standard methods. Elements The essential elements viz., Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Copper, Manganese, Zinc and Iron were estimated using Flame photometer, UV-Vis Spectrophotometer and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS). Antioxidative activity N. Mathivanan et al. Chemical and biological properties of Morinda spp. The lipid peroxidation levels in the fruit extracts of M. citrifolia and M. pubescens were estimated by FTC (and Namiki,1981) and TBA (, 1959; Kikuzaki and Nakatani, 1993) methods. Ferric thiocyanate (FTC) method The fruit samples of 4mg in 99.5% ethanol were mixed with 2.51% Linoleic acid in 99.5% ethanol (4.1 ml), 0.05 M phosphate buffer, pH 7.0 (8 ml) and
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