Saponins rich fractions from Eurycoma longifolia extract

Abstract

Eurycoma longifolia which is a renowned folk medicinal herb in South East Asia is rich in saponins. This study investigated the different extraction and fractionation techniques of saponins from the roots of the plant. Organic solvents such as acetone and ethyl acetate were used to precipitate and partition saponins from the crude extract, respectively. The organic fractions were then analysed by colorimetric vanillin-sulphuric acid assay for its total saponin content. Solvent fractionation using ethyl acetate was found to produce higher total saponin content than acetone precipitation. Ethyl acetate fraction (676 ± 30 mg AE/g) was showed to have slightly higher saponins than its aqueous counterpart (511.389 ± 82.880 mg AE/g). The technique of acetone precipitation was unable to fully recover saponins as precipitate (95.468 ± 91.621 mg AE/g). The result showed that majority of saponins (881.581 ± 120.676 mg AE/g) still stayed in the aqueous counterpart of acetone precipitation. To conclude, both techniques of acetone precipitation and solvent fractionation had increased the saponin content from the crude extract (99.2 ± 32.1 mg AE/g). The increment was more significant for the technique of solvent fractionation. This study was successfully compared the different fractionation techniques and ethyl acetate could be used to concentrate saponins from the highly complex crude extract of E. longifolia roots.