University of Benghazi

Faculty of science
Department of chemistry

Phytochemical investigation and LC/MS profile of

Libyan Ephedra alata

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Content
• Natural products
• Ephedra
• Aim of study
• Extraction
• LC/MS technique
• Biological activity
• Isolation & purification
• Characterization
• References

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Natural products:
• Natural products (NPs), are broadly defined as chemicals produced
by living organisms.
• Result from metabolic reactions.
•Secondary metabolites.
Flavonoids Saponin

Natural products Alkaloids Tannin

Terpene Volatile oil

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Ephedra :
• Ephedra is a medicinal plant belonging to the Ephedraceae family

• At present, more than 60 species of Ephedra plants have been

identified.

• distributed as perennial plants and shrubs in North Africa, America,

Asia, and Europe.

• In Libya, two species can be found namely, E. altissima and E. alata.

• Historically, the beverage of E. alata is widely used in traditional

medicine to treat several disorders including chills, coughs, fever, and
bronchial asthma.

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• Alkaloid is the main active component of Ephedra, it found
that 29 have been identified.

• The pure alkaloid ephedrine was first isolated and characterised by Nagai
in 1885.

• It was then forgotten until it was rediscovered by Chen and Schmidt in

the early 1920s
OH OH OH
H H
N N NH2

Ephedrine Pseudoephedrine Norephedrine

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Aim of study:
The design of the current study was to determine the functional properties of seeds of two Ephedra species (E. alata and E. altissima) naturally growing in Tunisian

dry and grind

plant collection extraction
the plant

Biological activity evaporate the

LC/MS
test extract

Column Spectroscopic
chromatography TLC
techniques

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Extraction:
•Ultrasonic solvent extraction .
•Sonication: is the act of applying sound energy to agitate particles in a sample, for various
purposes such as the extraction of multiple compounds from plants.
• Four fractions are going to prepare using the following solvents:
 Hexane
 Chloroform
 Ethyl acetate
 Methanol

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LC/MS technique:
• is an analytical chemistry technique that
combines the physical separation capabilities
of liquid chromatography with the mass
analysis capabilities of mass spectrometry
(MS).
• Aim:
To investigate the phytochemicals in the crud
extract of the plant.

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Biological activity:
• Secondary metabolites are compounds of high biological activity.
• All fractions will likely to undergo antibacterial activity test.

Isolation and purification:

The compounds of the active fraction are going to isolate and purify by using column
chromatography and TLC.

Characterization:
The bioactive compound is going to characterize by using NMR.

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References:

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Thank you

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