Background: Medicinal plants have great importance in African medicine and are also used as precursors in drug discovery. The medicinal value of plants lies in their bioactive constituents which usually allow them to fight against several diseases. Plant-based natural constituents can be derived from any part of the plant like roots, bark, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds. The present study was designed to determine the bioactive/biochemical compounds present in the methanol extract of Anthocleista nobilis root.Materials and Methods: GC -MS analysis of the methanol extract of A. nobilis root was performed using a Perkin Elmer GC Clarus 500 system comprising an Agilent technologies 5975 MSD model detector and a gas chromatograph interfaced to a mass spectrometer with the aid of the Turbo mass 5.0 software.Results: The study results of the GC-MS analysis provided different phytochemical compounds possessing several biological activities such as antimicrobial, antifungal, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory activities. This study therefore, showed that root of Anthocleista nobilis is a source of biologically active metabolites. Furthermore, root extract revealed the presence of diverse chemical constituents.Conclusion: The results of the present study suggest a recommendation of A. nobilis root as a plant of phytopharmaceutical importance.

Background: Plants have diverse phytochemicals with different solubility levels and medicinal efficacy. This study aimed to determine the presence of phytochemical constituents and in vitro antioxidant activity of methanol root extract of Anthocleista nobilis. Objectives: Determining the bioactive principles and free radical scavenging properties of A. nobilis root Methods: The preliminary phytochemical investigations were performed using standard analytical procedures. The in vitro antioxidant properties were assessed by 2,2-diphenyl-1- picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging assay, nitric oxide (NO) scavenging activity, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ) scavenging activity. Results: The phytochemical analyses revealed the presence of several compounds: saponins, reducing sugar, alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, cardiac glycosides, and mucilages. The concentrations of these compounds were different. A considerable quantity of phytochemicals was found in the methanol extract. The impact of the extract on DPPH, NO, FRAP, TAC, H2 O2 radicals were dependently and ascendingly concentrated. Solvent extract demonstrated better antioxidant activity, with DPPH and NO showing maximum antioxidant capability in conjunction with IC50 values of 5.45 µg/mL. Conclusion: The study results prove that A. nobilis is a possible source of natural antioxidants, justifying its use in indigenous medicine.

T   The production and classification of sperm shape abnormalities in laboratory animals through administration of chemical agents, be it natural or synthetic, has in recent years developed into a very reliable, species and drug specific method of assay for testing the mutagenicity of phytotherapeutic agent. In this research, observed numbers, percentage and types of dysmorphisms induced by the oral administration of Pausinystalia yohimbe methanol root extract in varying doses in male wistar rats were investigated. Forty five rats were randomly divided into five groups of nine rats each. Rats in group I (control) were administered 1 mL/kg distilled water, group II received 5 mg/kg body weight sildenafil citrate, while those in groups III, IV, and V were given 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg body weight of the extract respectively for 14 days after which they were sacrificed and sperm cells were analysed for possible morphological abnormalities. In this study, oral administration of the extract has significant (p < 0.05) effect on the morphology of sperm cells, with sperm normalities decreases, while abnormalities increases when compared with the control groups. However, the abnormalities decreased dose dependently with slightly increase in normalities. The abnormal morphology ranged from double heads, tailless sperm, headless sperm, double tails, short sperm and bent tail in both extract and sildenafil citrate administered animals. The tailless sperm morphological changes had the highest rate of occurrence. The observation confirmed that mutagenicity of chemical agents, be it natural or synthetic, could be tested and compared using the sperm head-shape abnormality assay method, thereby predicting simple to complex dysmorphisms.