Effect of drying on the bioactive compounds in the apical shoot of Sterculea tragacantha using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopic method

The need to understand the nature of the alteration of the bioactive compounds present in the apical shoot of Sterculia tragacantha is the basis of this study. The apical shoots of Sterculia tragacantha were washed and then divided into two parts: the first part was blended, packaged, and stored in a freezer; the second part was dried in a hot air oven at 60 °C until a constant dry weight was obtained, after reducing the moisture content from 73.14 to 10.39%. It was then blended, stored in an airtight polyethene bag, and kept for GC–MS analysis. Eighteen compounds were detected and identified in both the dried and fresh forms of Sterculia tragacantha. The results showed that the compound with the highest concentration was 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (Z, Z)-, 2-hydroxy-1- (hydroxymethyl) ethyl ester, both in the fresh (17.61%) and dried (19.00%) form of the apical shoot of Sterculia tragacantha. It was also revealed that squalene (C30H50) was mostly affected by the drying technique, reducing the concentration by 43.81%, while cyclo-octasiloxane, hexadecamethyl-(C16H48O8Si8) was mostly favoured by increasing the composition by 72.57%. The study concluded that an alteration in the concentration of the compounds in Sterculia tragacantha could be attributed to differences in the physical and chemical properties of the individual compounds and also suggested that full exploitation of the plant material and its bioactivities could be made possible through process optimization.