Phytochemical screening of Andrographis paniculata, garlic and turmeric as phytogenic feed additives used in poultry

Introduction

Phytogenic feed additives are those plant derived products (leaves, bark, root, flowers or buds, etc.,) incorporated as feed additives in poultry diet which act as alternative to antibiotic growth promoters, improvement of digestibility, aids in nutrient absorption, immunomodulatory and maintaining the gut health (Athanasiadou et al. 2007) [2] . Medicinal plants are used in various applications since it is less toxic than synthetic chemicals, easily available and highly accessible. Medicinal plants contain active constituents called phytochemicals, the nonnutritive plant chemicals such as phenols, saponins, unsaturated lactones and cytogenic glycosides exhibiting protective or disease-preventive properties (Evans, 2009) [7] . Efficacy between phytogenic feed products has considerable variation in chemical composition due to climatic conditions, location, harvest stage or storage conditions, etc., (Applegate et al. 2010) [1] . During immune defense stress conditions, phytogenic feed additives aid to increase the intestinal availability of essential nutrients for absorption and thereby boosting the birds for better growth (Hashemi and Davoodi, 2010) [10] . Prabakar et al. (2016) [17] elucidated that plant based bioactive components (phytogenic feed additives) have been proven in poultry for digestion stimulating properties, growth promotion, antimicrobial activity, antioxidant and anti-stress property, gut microflora, immune enhancement and carcass meat safety and quality. Andrographis paniculata belongs to Acanthaceae family, a medicinal plant widely used in Ayurvedic preparations and in traditional system of medicine from time immemorial for various ailments to humans and animals. The plant is naturally available and cultivated in India, Srilanka, Mauritius and Pakistan. It is also named in various local names according to the Indian languages such as Kalmegh, Nilavembu, Kalupnath, Mahatila and Kiriat, etc. Andrographis paniculata or Kalmegh is called as "King of Bitters". Garlic (Allium sativum L.,) belongs to Amaryllidaceae family and native of central Asia. It is the most widely used plant product in dietary and for other medicinal applications (Fallah, 2015) [8] . Garlic has bioactive components like sulphur containing compounds (Alliin, diallylsulphides and allicin) which act as antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasite, antiviral, antioxidant, antithrombotic, anticancerous and vasodilator characteristics (Reuter et al., 1996) [19] .

Turmeric (Curcuma longa), a tropical herb of Zingiberaceae family, is widely used in indigenous medicine in Asia as an antimicrobial, endogenous stimulant, anti-flatulent and antiinflammatory agent (Nouzarian et al. 2011) [15] . Medicinal properties are innumerable. The main constituent of turmeric is curcumin and other constituents present are volatile oils including tumerone, atlantone and zingiberone and sugars, proteins and resins (Leung 1980; Pawar et al., 2014) [13,16] . Furthermore, Andrographis paniculata, garlic and turmeric contain several metabolites with wide applications. The present study was conducted with the aim of preliminary qualitative analysis for the detection of phytochemicals present in the feed additives.

Materials and methods

Collection and authentication of plant materials

The leaves of Andrographis paniculata were obtained from the herbal garden located at Veterinary College and Research Institute, Orathanadu. The garlic bulbs and dry turmeric rhizomes were purchased from the local market. The taxonomical identification of the plant, turmeric rhizomes and garlic bulb were authenticated taxonomically by the Botanical Survey of India, Southern Regional Centre, Coimbatore, and Tamil Nadu.

Preparation of phytogenic feed additives

The leaves of Andrographis paniculata were shade dried, broken down into small pieces, then powdered using laboratory blender and sieved. The commercially available garlic bulbs and dry turmeric rhizomes were purchased from the local market and were shade dried. It was broken down into small pieces and powdered using laboratory blender and sieved. The powdered materials were stored in air tight containers separately. The phytogenic feed additives are depicted in Figure 1.

A. Extraction process

The aqueous extracts of A. paniculata leaf powder, turmeric rhizome powder and garlic bulb powder were prepared separately each with 10 g of powder in 100 ml of water and heated below 50ºC and then kept at room temperature for cooling. Then it was filtered through filter paper and the extracts were kept at 4ºC for further process and analysis.

B. Phytochemical analysis

The phytochemical analysis was carried out with the crude extracts obtained through extraction and were subjected to various tests using commonly employed precipitation and coloration reaction as per the methods of Harborne (1998)

Results and Discussion

The results of the phytochemical screening of aqueous extract of A. paniculata leaves, garlic and turmeric are presented in Table 1. The phytochemical analysis of aqueous extract of A. paniculata leaves revealed the presence of alkaloids, tannin, phlobatannin, terpenoids and flavonoids. The qualitative phytochemical analysis of aqueous extract of A. paniculata leaves revealed higher flavonoid content but lower phenol levels which is in accordance with the findings of Dwivedi et al. (2015) [6] reported that the phytochemical constituents in the dried leaves of Andrographis paniculata subjected to three solvents viz., petroleum ether, methanol and water revealed the presence of alkaloids, steroids, flavonoids, tannins, triterpenoids, quinones and protein in different solvent extracts. Rajalakshmi and Cathrine (2016) [18] reported that the ethanolic extract of Andrographis paniculata leaves for phytochemicals analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids, carbohydrates, saponin, protein, phytosterol, phenolic compounds, flavonoid and glycoside. Nagajothi et al. (2018) [14] reported that phytochemicals in aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Andrographis paniculata leaves found alkaloids, phenols, tannins, phlobatannins, hydrolysable tannins, flavonoids, terpenoids and saponins in aqueous extract, whereas ethanolic extract had similar phytochemicals and also positive for cardiac glycosides except for phlobatannins. Junaid and Patil (2020) [12] reported that the medicinal utilities are determined by the active principles present in the plant and the biological activities are exhibited through the phytochemicals available in it. The phytochemical analysis reveals the presence or absence of phytochemicals in the plant substances. [11] , Divya et al. (2017) [5] who reported that qualitative phytochemical screening of aqueous extract of garlic (Allium sativum) bulbs using the standard method of analysis showed the presence of flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, tannins and cardiac glycosides. The phytochemical screening of aqueous extract of turmeric revealed the presence of phlobatannin, hydrolysable tannin, terpenoids, flavonoids, volatile oil and cardiac glycosides.

The results of this study are in accordance with the findings of Deb et al. (2013) [3] that aqueous extract contains alkaloids, amino acids and flavonoids whereas ethanolic extract has flavonoids, tannins and amino acids whereas Pawar et al.

(2014) [16] reported that phytochemical analysis in turmeric rhizomes elucidated that 95 per cent ethanol crude extract of turmeric indicated the presence of carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, alkaloids, terpenoids and flavonoids.

Conclusion

The qualitative phytochemical analysis of aqueous extract of A. paniculata leaves, garlic and turmeric revealed the presence of various phytochemical compounds. Hence, from this study the phytochemical analysis helps to determine the bioactive compounds presence or absence in it for further application as phytogenic feed additive in the poultry diet. Further, the phytoconstituents present in the plant may varied according to the stages and cultivation of the plant and differs based on the extraction methods.

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementThe authors acknowledge the funding and the other facilities required for the study was provided by Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai throughout the study.

References

1. Applegate TJ, Klose V, Steiner T, Ganner A, Schatzmayr G. Probiotics and phytogenics for poultry: Myth or reality. J Appl Poult Res. 2010;19:194-210.
2. Athanasiadou S, Githiori J, Kyriazakis I. Medicinal plants for helminthes parasite control: Facts and fiction. Animal. 2007;1(9):1392-1400.
3. Deb N, Majumdar P, Ghosh AK. Pharmacognostic and phytochemical evaluation of the rhizomes of Curcuma longa Linn. J PharmaSciTech. 2013;2(2):81-86.
4. Dhiman A, Jugnu G, Kavita S, Arun N, Sandeep D. A review on medicinal prospectives of Andrographis paniculata Nees. J Pharm Sci Innov. 2012;1(1):1-4.
5. Divya BJ, Suman B, Venkataswamy M, Thyagaraju K. A study on phytochemicals, functional groups and mineral composition of Allium sativum (Garlic) cloves. Int J Curr Pharm Res. 2017;9(3):42-5.
6. Dwivedi D, Thanwar M, Gharia AK. A phytochemical investigation on Andrographis paniculata. J Chem Pharm Res. 2015;7(10):822-827.
7. Evans WC. Trease and Evans Pharmacognosy. 16th ed. Saunders Elsevier, 2009, p. 135-415.
8. Fallah R, Mirzaei E. Effect of dietary inclusion of turmeric and thyme powders on performance, blood parameters and immune system of broiler chickens. J Livest Sci. 2016;7:180-186.
9. Harborne JB. Phytochemical methods: A guide to modern techniques of plant analysis. Chapman and Hall, 1998, p. 21-72.
10. Hashemi SR, Davoodi H. Phytogenics as new class of feed additive in poultry industry. J Anim Vet Adv. 2010;9(17):2295-2304.
11. Huzaifa U, Labaran I, Bello AB, Olatunde A. Phytochemical screening of aqueous extract of garlic (Allium sativum) bulbs. Rep Opin. 2014;6(8):1-4.
12. Junaid RS, Patil MK. Qualitative tests for preliminary screening: An overview. Int J Chem Stud. 2020;8(2):603608.
13. Leung A. Encyclopedia of common natural ingredients used in food, drugs and cosmetics. New York, NY: John Wiley, 1980, p. 313-314.
14. Nagajothi S, Mekala P, Raja A, Raja MJ, Senthilkumar P. Andrographis paniculata: Qualitative and quantitative phytochemical analysis. J Pharmacogn Phytochem. 2018;7(4):1251-1253.
15. Nouzarian R, Tabeidian SA, Toghyani M, Ghalamkari G, Toghyani M. Effect of turmeric powder on performance, carcass traits, humoral immune responses and serum metabolites in broiler chicken. J Anim Feed Sci. 2011;20:389-400.
16. Pawar H, Karde M, Mundle N, Jadhav P, Mehra K. Phytochemical evaluation and curcumin content determination of turmeric rhizomes collected from Bhandara District of Maharashtra (India). Med Chem. 2014;4(8):588-591.
17. Prabakar G, Gopi M, Karthik K, Shanmuganathan S, Kirubakaran A, Pavulraj S. Phytobiotics: could the greens inflate the poultry production. Asian J Anim Vet Adv. 2016;11:383-92.
18. Rajalakshmi V, Cathrine L. Phytochemical screening and antimicrobial activity of ethanolic extract of Andrographis paniculata. J Pharmacogn Phytochem. 2016;5(2):175-177.
19. Reuter HD, Koch HP, Lawson D. Therapeutic effects and applications of garlic and its preparations. In: Koch HP, Lawson LD, editors. Garlic: The Science and therapeutic applications of Allium sativum L. and related species. Baltimore: William & Wilkins, 1996, p. 135-213.