ISSN: 2161-0401
Tamrat Tesfaye Ayele Getahun Tadesse Gurmessa Zelelam Abdisa Negera Abdisa
Phytochemical investigation of dichloromethane extract of the fruit of Cucumis ficifolius led to the isolation of 2', 3'- dihydroxypropyl pentadecanoate (1), pentadecanoic acid (2) and tetradecanoic acid (3). The structure of the compounds was established based on 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic studies and comparison with literature data. This is the first report to isolate and characterize secondary metabolite from Cucumis ficifolius. The crude extract and the compounds were evaluated for their antibacterial activity against five bacterial strains (S. aures, E. coli, P. aueroginosa, S. tphyimurium and S. flexineri). The crude extract showed considerable activity, whereas the isolated compounds showed little or none inhibitory activities against the test bacterial strains, which could be due to the synergetic effects of the various kinds of compounds in the crude extracts or a compound responsible for the activity of the crude extract could be minor and has not been isolated.