Identification and analysis of toxic phytochemicals

Abstract

Plants and plant products are used in food and medicine for thousands of years ago. It was thought that natural means safe, but this is not always the case as many plants or plant constituents are toxic or even poisonous especially those containing cardiac, cyanogenic, and thio-glycosides and certain types of alkaloids. Toxic natural products may cause hepatotoxicity, neurotoxicity, gastrointestinal toxicity, renal toxicity, and cytotoxicity. Analysis of toxic plants and plant constituents is facing a great challenge because of their different chemical and physicochemical properties. Novel extraction techniques have been proposed such as ultrasonic-assisted extraction, microwave-assisted extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, and accelerated solvent extraction. In this chapter, we will have an overview of some of the toxic plants and phytochemicals as well as the methods for their qualitative and quantitative analysis.