Separation and characterization of phenolic compounds from Terminalia ivoiriensis using liquid chromatography-positive electrospray ionization tandem mass spectroscopy

Terminalia ivoriensis A. Chev. (Combretaceae) is an Ivorian medicinal plant. There is little ethnobotanical and almost no chemical information available for this species. The aim of this study was to isolate phenolic compounds from T. ivoriensis. In this way, its ethyl acetate extract (Ea) was fractionated by silica gel column chromatography followed by Sephadex LH20 filtration. Elution solvents were methanol (MeOH), methylene chloride (Mc) and ethyl acetate (EtOAc). Analysis of the obtained fractions (F1-F4) by liquid chromatography coupled to positive electro-spray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) afforded six known polyphenols: 1) 3,3'-di-O-methylellagic acid); 2) 3,7,8-tri-O-methylellagic acid; 3) Progallin A; 4) 3,3',4-O-Trimethyl-4'-O-β-Dglucopyranosylellagic acid; 5) Punicalagin and, 6) Punicalin. All these natural products were isolated here for the first time from this plant. They presented various biological activities among which were anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-HIV activities.Keywords: Terminalia, ivoriensis, LC-ESI-MS, isolation, characterization, polyphenols, activity, antiinflammatory, antioxidant, anti-HIV.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(27), pp. 4393-439