South Asian Research Journal of Natural Products

Gossypium hirsutum is an important plant with therapeutic properties; hence this study seeks to screen the leaf extract for its chemical composition and antioxidant activities in order to find possible natural sources of novel phytochemicals in pharmaceutical formulations. The qualitative and quantitative phytochemical screening was conducted using standard procedure, the chemical composition was determined using gas chromatography mass spectrophotometry (GC-MS) while the antioxidant activities was determined using three assays, DPPH, ABTS and NOS. the qualitative phytochemical screening revealed the presence of saponin, alkaloid, phenol, tannin, phytate, steroids, terpenoids, flavonoids and proanthocyanidin. Alkaloid was conspicuously absent in the extract. The quatitative phytochemical screening revealed the presence of saponins, flavonoids, phenols, steroids, phytates, terpenoids and proanthocyanidins in different concentration in which total phenol is the highest 552.64±35.30 mg/100g of the extract while total saponin is the lowest 22.25±1.41 mg/100g of the extract. The GC/MS analysis revealed the presence of 24 compounds which include caryophyllene with the highest percentage composition 33.62%. The antioxidant activities of the extract revealed that the extract had a moderate antioxidant activities with EC₅₀ of 12.12, 6.01 and 5.01 mg/mL. In conclusion, the leaf extract demonstrated antioxidant properties suitable for exploration in new drug development.