Journal of Biology and Nature

The bitter gourd, or Momordica charantia L., is a cucurbit that is commonly grown in tropical and subtropical areas and is rich in nutrients and medicinal value. The current work used methanol and ethanol as extraction solvents to examine the phytochemical profile, total phenolic content (TPC), and total flavonoid content (TFC) of M. charantia peel extracts. In the Sonipat district of Haryana, India, mature fruits were gathered, shade-dried, ground into a powder, and extracted using a Soxhlet device. Both methanolic and ethanolic peel extracts included flavonoids, phenolics, terpenoids, and steroids, according to qualitative phytochemical screening. Only the methanolic extract included tannins and alkaloids, whereas neither of the two solvents contained saponins or glycosides. The amount of bioactive compounds varied significantly depending on the solvent utilized, according to a quantitative study. The methanolic extract had the highest total phenolic content (116.88 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g), closely followed by the ethanolic extract (115.20 mg GAE/g), demonstrating the efficiency of polar solvents in phenolic extraction. In a similar vein, methanol outperformed ethanolic extracts in terms of flavonoid extraction, producing the highest total flavonoid concentration (18.92 mg quercetin equivalents (QE)/g). Overall, the results show that methanol is a more effective solvent than ethanol for removing these bioactive components from M. charantia peels, which are a rich source of phenolic and flavonoid compounds with possible antioxidant and medicinal qualities. The use of bitter gourd peels as a useful source of natural phytochemicals for pharmacological and nutraceutical purposes is supported by this study.