ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF Salvadora persica L

The leaves and stems petroleum ether, chloroform, methanol, and aqueous extracts of Salvadora persica L were screened for their antimicrobial activity using the cup plate agar diffusion method. The extraction was done using various solvents like: petroleum ether, chloroform, methanol and water. The microbes included Gram positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus viridans), Gram negative bacteria, (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and two fungi (Aspergillus niger and Candida albicans).

The petroleum ether and chloroform extracts of the leaves and stems showed high, moderate or low activity against at least two or three bacterial organisms. The methanol extracts both leaves and stems exhibited pronounced activity against the isolated bacteria St. viridans. The methanol extract of the leaves possessed higher activity against both Gram positive organisms (B. subtilis, S. aureus) than the Gram negative organisms (E. coli, K. pnumoniae and Pr. vulgaris) while the stems methanol extract showed the reverse activity. The aqueous extracts of the leaves and stems were inactive against all bacteria and fungi tested except that the aqueous extract of the leaves showed moderate activity against S. aureus. The methanol extract of the leaves showed higher antifungal activity against A. niger and C. albicans than the methanol extract of stems. The Minimum inhibitory concentrations of the most active methanol extracts of leaves and stems of S. persica against the standard bacteria were determined using the agar plate dilution method. The antibacterial activity of two reference drugs were determined against the six tested Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and compared to the antibacterial activity of the tested plant extracts. The phytochemical analysis of methanol extracts of both leaves and stems showed high concentrations of flavonoids and tannins and low concentrations of triterpenes and saponins. However, sterols in low concentrations was detected in leaves while absent in the stems. The work reported here was carried out to investigate the antimicrobial activity of Savadora persica and to detect the presence of secondary metabolites.