Abstract
Aspilia pluriseta is associated with various bioactivities, although with limited scientific justification. In this study, we evaluated the antimicrobial activity, and characterized the phytochemicals of root extracts of A. pluriseta aimed at validating its therapeutic potential. We used BACTEC MGIT™ 960 system to test for antitubercular activity, disc-diffusion together with the microdilution method to evaluate antimicrobial activities and qualitative phytochemical tests together with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis to determine the phytochemicals that associated with A. pluriseta extracts activity. We show that methanolic crude extract (at 1 g/mL) had high Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) inhibitory activity (0 growth unit) and considerable potency against Escherichia coli (11.7 mm), Staphylococcus aureus (9.0 mm), and Candida albicans (7.7 mm). All the extract fractions exerted remarkable antimycobacterial activities with minimum inhibitory activity of between 6.26 – 25 μg/mL. The highest antimicrobial activity of petroleum ether and dichloromethane fraction was against E. coli at inhibition zone diameters of 8.3 mm, and 8.0 mm, respectively, while ethyl acetate fraction was against S. aureus with an inhibition zone of 8.7 mm. Methanolic fraction exhibited broad-spectrum activity against 87.5% of the tested microbes (inhibition zones 6.3–8.3 mm). Furthermore, we qualitatively detected terpenoids, alkaloids, and phenolics such as flavonoids, and anthraquinones in extract fractions. GC-MS analysis detected an abundance of fatty acid esters, 2-hydroxy-1-(hydroxymethyl) ethyl ester-hexadecanoic acid, and 2,3-dihydroxy propyl ester-octadecanoic acid and four alkanes. Taken together, we show that A. pluriseta extract fractions (especially ethyl acetate and methanolic fractions) have strong selective antitubercular activity, and thus, we scientifically validate the use of A. pluriseta as a potential source for the discovery of novel antitubercular agents.
Highlights
Infectious diseases are a primary cause of global human and animal mortality, which is further aggravated by frequent emergence and reemergence of opportunistic infections [1]
Our findings demonstrate that A. pluriseta extract fractions have remarkable selective antitubercular activity, which is partly if not exclusively associated with phytochemicals such as terpenoids, phenolics, alkaloids, fatty acid alkyl esters detected in the extract fractions
We screened for general antimicrobial activity by disc diffusion method against representative Gram-positive bacteria (S. aureus), Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli), and fungi (C. albicans)
Summary
Infectious diseases are a primary cause of global human and animal mortality, which is further aggravated by frequent emergence and reemergence of opportunistic infections [1]. Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of mortalities from a single infectious agent, which claimed the lives of over 1 million people, besides making an additional over 10 million people ill in 2018 [2,3]. TB is an airborne infection primarily caused by MTB [3, 4]. MTB thrives in the hostile environment of the human lungs, despite a sustained immunological onslaught of the host that prevents the growth of most other bacteria [3, 5]. MTB effectively survives host defenses because of a highly impermeable cellular envelope that covers it. MTB can manipulate the host immunological defense mechanisms to foster its survival in a harsh environment [5]
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