Isolation and Biological Activity of β-Sitosterol and Stigmasterol from the Roots of Indigofera heterantha

Abstract

In the ongoing phytochemical studies the roots of Medicinal plant known as Indigofera heterantha were investigated phytochemicaly in order to explore its medicinal potential. The ethyl acetate fraction was subjected to column chromatography which resulted in the isolation and purification of two new source compounds known as β-sitosterol (1) and Stigmasterol (2). The structures of these compounds were established by using Mass Spectrometry. The structures of these compounds were further authenticated by comparison with the literature data. The isolated pure compounds were screened for antidiabetic and membrane stabilizing activities. The antidiabetic activity of β-sitosterol (1) was measured on the basis of the glucose uptake in yeast cells. The results obtained revealed that β-sitosterol (1) exhibited significantly antidiabetic activity at all glucose concentrations with minimum increase 66.48% at 10µg/ml and maximum increase 74.46% at 80μg/ml glucose concentration. The Stigmasterol (2) showed good membrane stabilizing activity in HRBC, the minimum stabilization 62.74% at 10μg/ml and maximum stabilization 65.19% at 40μg/ml. These results showed that this plant is very important from medical point of view and it needs further phytochemical investigation to explore its hidden medicinal potential.