ANTIBACTERIAL AND PHYTOCHEMICAL EVALUATION OF HARUNGANA MADAGASCARIENSIS L (HYPERICACEAE) SEEDS

Abstract

Clinical cases of resistance to orthodox drugs are on the rise. Medicinal plants are a source of lead compounds in drug discovery. Harungana madagascariensis is known for its ethno medicinal uses in the treatment of dysentery and related bacterial infections. In view of this, investigating its antibacterial drug lead potential is an imperative .The crude methanol extract of the fresh seeds was fractionated with n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and acetone successively. Agar dilution method was used for the antibacterial evaluation with clinical and ATCC strains of .E. coli and S.aureus as test microorganisms. Phytochemical methods were by using standard phytochemical screening reagents.The Chloroform fraction was the most active against the test pathogenic organisms with observed minimum inhibitory concentration MIC trend: chloroform (0.03125 mg/ml) > ethyl acetate (0.50000 mg/ml). Anthraquinones were found only in the most active chloroform fraction with some amount of flavonoids aglycones, and triterpenoids. This study showed that anthraquinones and/or flavonoids aglycones could be responsible for the antibacterial activity with possible synergistic effect from flavonoids and terpenoids. This further confirmed its ethnomedicinal uses.