Background: Euphorbia grandicornis is widely utilized in traditional medicine for the treatment of microbial infections including sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhoea and for healing of wounds.
Objective: The aim of this work was to isolate and evaluate the antibacterial and anticancer activities of Euphorbia grandicornis chemical constituents.
Methods: Chemical constituents were isolated and identified using various spectroscopic techniques such as IR, MS, and NMR. The single point growth inhibitory potential of the compounds was determined using a 96-well plate based assay.
Results: The CH2Cl2 crude extracts exhibited potent antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli ATCC 8739 and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 with percentage growth of 94.90 ± 4.24 and 29.47 ± 4.89 respectively. Hence, the CH2Cl2 crude extract was further subjected to column chromatography which resulted in the isolation of methyl 2,5-dihydroxybenzoate (1), n-octyl benzoate (2), friedelanol (3), and germanicol (4) and identification of compounds 12-24 for the first time in the species based on the LC-MS/MS spectroscopic data. The purified compounds (1-4), and previously reported compounds (5-11) were evaluated for antibacterial activities against S. aureus and E. coli, as well as the cytotoxicity effects against HeLa cells. Of the purified compounds, methyl 2,5-dihydroxybenzoate (1), was the most active against E.coli and S. aureus with a percentage growth of 19.12 ± 0.65 and 23.32 ± 0.23 respectively. β-amyrin (6), and β-sitosterol (8), were active against S. aureus with percentage growth of 27.17 ± 0.07, and 47.79 ± 2.99 respectively.
Conclusion: The results obtained from this study indicate that E. grandicornis, is a rich source of chemical constituents that may provide new lead compounds for the development of antibacterial agents.
Keywords: Chemical constituents; Euphorbia grandicornis; Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 and Escherichia coli ATCC 8739.
© 2022. The Author(s).