Characterization and antioxidant effect of mucilage in leaves from Cocculus hirsutus

Natural polysaccharides are attractive biodegradable polymers. Among the natural plant-based polysaccharides, mucilage is an interest for numerous biomedical applications. Hence, mucilage was isolated from the leaves of Cocculus hirsutus (Family; Menispermaceae) and tested for its phytochemicals, physio-chemical characteristics using standard procedure such as solubility, pH, swelling index etc., and structural characterization studies using FTIR, GC-MS and SEM followed by antioxidant and in vitro cytotoxic assays. The phytochemical results showed the presence of carbohydrates, amino acids, flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins, terpenes, saponin, glycosides and steroids. The yield percentage of mucilage was 26% and showed swelling index of 6.8-7.4. The FTIR spectra of mucilage showed characteristics strong peaks of major functional groups. The SEM image showed the porous and rough surface morphological characters of mucilage. The obtained mucilage showed antioxidant potential by DPPH, FRAP and Total reducing power assay and also exhibited non-cytotoxic character against fibroblast cell lines. Thus, the isolated mucilage showed promising characteristics which can be exploited for various biological applications from food to drug release studies.