Phytochemical Screening and Quantification of Ellagic Acid in Cliestanthus collinus using RP-HPLC-DAD Method and its Insecticidal Activity against Stored Grain Pests

This study reports the preliminary phytochemical analysis followed by the quantitative determination of ellagic acid in different parts of Cliestanthus collinus using reverse phase liquid chromatography (HPLC) in association with a diode array detector (DAD). The developed RP-HPLC method achieved separation of ellagic acid within 10 min of run time through gradient elution using methanol and water with 1% acetic acid as mobile phase on a C-18 reverse phase column at room temperature and 365 nm of detection wavelength. The method showed excellent linearity across a range of 0.01 µg mL-1 to 10 µg mL-1 with LOD and LOQ values of 0.027 µg mL-1 and 0.091 µg mL-1, respectively, demonstrating lower precision characterized by RSD% of 0.73% and higher accuracy as recovery of 99.5%. Additionally, the insecticidal activity of ellagic acid obtained by isolation from the leaves, bark and fruits of C. collinus was examined against two stored grain pest, Tribolium castaneum and Corcyra cephalonica larvae. The results indicated that ellagic acid showed significant pesticidal activity against T. castaneun with a mortality rate of 98% than against C. cephalonica larvae with a mortality rate of 76% suggesting its use as a natural biopesticide. To our best of knowledge, this is the first report pertaining to phytochemical screening of the whole part of C. collinus and quantitation of ellagic acid in different parts of C. collinus suggesting this plant as a new natural source of ellagic acid along with pesticidal activity of ellagic acid against stored grain pest.