Traditionally, Sceletium tortuosum has been used as a medicine and for social and spiritual purposes. The
genus is distributed in the south-western parts of South Africa. This project phytochemically analysed and
characterised Sceletium plant extracts and determined if any extract showed anti-malarial properties. Extracts
were prepared in ethanol and methanol and various compounds were purified using column chromatography
with hexane and ethyl acetate as mobile phase. The structure of isolated compounds, including mesembrine,
pinitol, sucrose, mesembrenone and obtusalin, was confirmed using NMR. The Plasmodium Lactate
dehydrogenase assay was used to screen all extracts and mesembrine to show that four extracts showed antimalarial
activity with activity values ranging between 1.47 μg/ml and 7.32 μg/ml, well below the 10 μg/ml
cut off value. The study recommends extracting compounds from fresh plant material and further research as
to anti-malarial activity of compounds isolated from Sceletium tortuosum / Life and Consumer Sciences / M. Sc. (Life Sciences)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/13237 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Setshedi, Itumeleng Bridgette |
| Contributors | Myer, M. S., Fouche, Gerda, Dewar, J. B. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | 1 online resource (xii, 139 leaves) : color illustrations, color graphs |
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