ABSTRACT
The rising cases of fungal infections due to increasing climatic and environmental change, and injudicious use of antibiotics has led recently to increase fungal infections resistance to available pharmaceutical antifungal drugs. The research for alternative local medicinal source of plant origin is on the increase, thus, the aim of this research work is to determine the chemical constituents and antifungal activity of Morinda lucida benth extracts. The Morinda lucida leaves were extracted with hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol solvent using soxhlet extractor in order of increasing polarity of the solvent. Phytochemical screening was conducted on the extracts according to standard methods and procedures while the antifungal analysis was conducted using the agar well diffusion method. The extracted isolates were characterized by Infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis.
The phytochemical screening of all the extracts of Morinda lucida shows the presence of phytochemicals such as glycoside, saponins, phenolics, alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, eugenols and flavonoids with the exception of tanins. The hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of Morinda lucida exhibit, moderate, strong, and very strong antifungal inhibitory activities respectively against the tested fungi strains of Candida auris, Candida albicans, Aspergillus fumigatus, Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Epidermophyton floccosum. The functional groups detected in hexane extract isolate shows 3284.40cm-1 (O-H) of alcohol and carboxylic acid; for ethyl acetate extract (3350.90 cm-1, suggesting alkaloids) and methanol extract (3373.20 cm-1, suggesting alkaloid functional groups). The GC-MS analysis of the hexane extractshows 48 compounds including hexadecanoic acid methyl ester, and squalene among others while the HPLC analysis for both ethyl acetate and methanol indicated nicotine, rubiadine and vinblastine which have reported antifungal activity. This study corroborates the use of the plants as antifungal agents by traditional people.
