Our research involves the biochemical study of home-grown plants of South Texas, along the Texas-Mexico border, that are used as folk remedies in the treatment of diabetes. One of the commonly used plants is The Moringa oleifera plant has been found medicinal properties have been used by residents of this area in the form of infusions. The ingestion of these preparations has been claimed by diabetics to lower sugar levels in the blood and to alleviate the symptoms associated with this illness. In these studies, we have chosen to investigate the presence of quercetin, gallic and ferulic acids in Moringa oleifera since these phenols have been previously proven to regulate clotting patterns and to decrease cellular oxidative stress. We have used preparative column chromatography in the isolation of these compounds and reverse and normal phase high performance liquid chromatography for their identification. Additionally, the presence of these phenols was detected by means of UV- spectrophotometry. Our experimental results indicate the presence of gallic and ferulic acid in the sample. However, the presence of quercetin in the extracts has not yet definitely been established, since the separation of quercetin and ferulic acid by our methods has not been successful so far. Further experimentation involves the development of other HPLC methods that will allow the complete separation of ferulic acid from quercetin.

HPLC detection of ferulic acid, gallic acid and quercetin from aqueous extracts of Moringa oleifera

255th National Meeting (2018)

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