Jaabir M. S. M, Vigneshwaran R, Ehtisham Ul Hassan T. Md, Kumar S. S. Study on the Antimicrobial Activity of Ethanolic Extract of the Fruits of Solanum Torvum and its Phytochemical Analysis by GC-MS. Biomed Pharmacol J 2010;3(1)

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Manuscript received on :April 18, 2010
Manuscript accepted on :May 31, 2010
Published online on: 21-11-2015

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M. S. Mohamed Jaabir*, R. Vigneshwaran, T. Md. Ehtisham Ul Hassan and S. Senthil kumar

Department of Biotechnology, Jamal Mohamed College (Auto), Tiruchirappalli - 620020 India.

Abstract

The objective of the study is to screen for antimicrobial activity of the ethanolic extract of Solanum torvum and to study its phytochemical composition. The ethanolic extract of the fruit of Solanum torvum was tested against six bacterial (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and two fungal (Aspergillus niger and Candida albicans) species. Results reveal significant levels of antibacterial activity on the four tested bacteria but there was no antifungal activity among the fungus tested. GC-MS analysis of the extract revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids and certain fatty acids like palmitic and oleic acids.

Keywords

Solanum torvum; antimicrobial activity; GC-MS; phytochemical analysis

Introduction

Plants have great potential for producing new drugs of great benefit to mankind. There are many compounds used in medicine today whose original derivatives were of plant origin. Many of the natural products in plants of medicinal value offer us new sources of drugs which have been used effectively in traditional medicine. Phytochemical progress has been aided enormously by the development of rapid and accurate methods of screening plants for particular chemicals. To date, several alkaloid, steroidal glycosides and long chain hydrocarbons and steroids have been previously isolated from Solanum torvum [1].  The plant has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of cough, asthma and bronchial infections [2, 3]. The focus of this study is to screen the ethanolic extract for the antimicrobial activity against clinical isolates and to study the phytochemical constituents responsible for the observation.

Materials and Methods

Preparation of the extract

The fruits of Solanum torvum were cleaned, cut into bits and rinsed with distilled water, and shade – dried. The dried plants were then powdered. In order to obtain the plant extracts, 20g of powdered plant material was soaked in 30 ml of ethanol overnight and then filtered through Whatmann filter paper (No.41) along with 2g of sodium sulphate to remove the sediments and traces of water in the filtrate. The filtrate was then concentrated by bubbling nitrogen gas into the solution and the volume was reduced to 1 ml. The extract contains both polar and non-polar phytocompounds of the plant material used. Extracts were then weighed and stored at -20°C till further use.

Antimicrobial Screening

Clinical isolates used in the screening study were Klebsiella pneumonia, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi and Pseudomonas aeruginosa among the bacteria and Aspergillus niger and Candida albicans among the fungi. Antimicrobial activity was performed by disc diffusion method as described elsewhere [4, 5], with Mueller Hinton Agar as the medium for bacteria and PDA for Fungi at three different concentrations such as 25, 50 and 100 mg/well.

Phytochemical analysis

The ethanolic extract of the fruit of Solanum torvum was filtered through 0.2 micron syringe filter and the filtrate was injected into the GC-MS column. The scanning was performed for 36 minutes and the chromatogram was obtained with retention time in the abscissa and percentage of the peak in the ordinate. The compounds were analyzed from the mass spectral data.

Result and Discussion

The ethanolic extract from the fruits of Solanum torvum was assayed for its antimicrobial activity against six bacterial (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and two fungal (Aspergillus niger, Candida albicans) pathogens by disc diffusion method, measuring the diameter of the inhibition zone with 25, 50, 100 mg of plant extract. The result showed that the plant extract possesses antibacterial activity tested against the bacterial strains. The maximum inhibition was observed at 100 mg concentration on Klebsiella pneumoniae (11 mm), Bacillus subtilis (12 mm), Escherichia coli (13 mm). No inhibitory effect was found against Aspergillus niger, Salmonella typhi, Candida albicans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Table 1). Screening of phytocompounds from the fruits of Solanum torvum by GC-MS study showed 12 different types of active constituents (Table 2) like volatile oils, phenolic, alkaloids, flavonoid, acidic compounds, palmitic and oleic acid etc. [6, 7, 8]. Oleic acid is known with pronounced antimicrobial properties [9] and it has been shown to exhibit antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Micrococcus kristinae. Benzene ethanamine,  a-methyl, 3-[N’-(3H-Indol-3-ylmethylene)-hydrazino]-5-methyl-[1,2,4]triazol-4-ylamine were the alkaloids and 4H-Pyran-4-one,2,3-dihydro-3,5-dihydroxy-6-methyl- was the flavonoid compound found in this plant at 4.6, 9.62, 6.16 R_t  respectively (Fig. 1). Maltol was the compound of sugar alcohol was detected at 5.89 R_t. n-Hexadecanoic acid was the palmitic acid compound detected at 17.41 R_t. Oleic acid and Hexadecanoic ethyl esters were the fatty acid ester compounds detected at an R_t of 17.85. Phytol was the diterpene compound and Octadecanoic acid was the stearic acid compound were found in the extract at R_t 19.92 and 20.63 respectively. These compounds are among those which are reported to have antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-fatigue, hypocholesterolemic, nematicide, antiandrogenic, anticancer and hemolytic activities (Table 3) [10, 11]. The outcome of the study provides a means to understand the potential use of the fruits of Solanum torvum and its contribution to latest developments in the pharmacology and phytochemistry if investigated into the details further.

Table 1: Antimicrobial activity of Solanum torvum fruits extract

Table 2: Phytocomponents identified in the ethanolic extract of the plant fruit Solanum torvum

Table 3: Phyto-components identified in the ethanolic extract of the plant fruit Solanum torvum

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