Phytochemical and Antimalarial Screening of Extracts of Leaves of Morinda Lucida (Rubiaceae)

Morinda lucida is a medicinal plant popular for its traditional uses in the treatment of several illnesses such as malaria, inflammation, diabetes, jaundice, hypertension, and dysentery. In this study, the powdered dried leaves of Morinda lucida were successively extracted with petroleum ether, ethyl acetate and methanol to obtain the extracts of the various organic solvents respectively. The extracts obtained were investigated for the presence of phytochemical and further screened for in vivo antimalarial activities. The results of the preliminary phytochemical screening of the extracts of leaves of Morinda lucida revealed the presence of alkaloids, terpenoids, phenols, reducing sugar, steroids, saponins, flavonoids, tannins, carbohydrates, lignans, quinines, xanthones and peptides. Quinones were significantly absent in all the extracts. The Rane's curative antimalarial test showed that the extracts at all the doses (250, 500, and 1000 mg/kg, per body weight) administered possess dose dependent antiplasmodial activity against Plasmodium berghei as evident from the parasitaemia suppression. The highest percentage suppression was recorded against the methanol extract at the concentration of 1000 mg/kg which was similar to that of the standard drug, chloroquine (5 mg/kg per body weight) used in the study. The results of this study demonstrated that the various extracts of Morinda lucida have promising antimalarial activity which can be attributed to the phytochemicals present in the plant.