Abstract
The chemical constituents, antibacterial, protection against protein denaturation and membrane stabilization activities of essential oils from flowers, leaves, seeds, bark and roots of M. oleifera were investigated. Of the eight bacterial strains tested, only the growths of four strains were inhibited by the essential oils. The oils from the flowers and seeds were the most active with MIC: 1.25 mg/mL each against P. vulgaris and K. pneumoniae respectively. All tested concentrations of M. oleifera essential oils showed high inhibition of protein denaturation (IC50 0.2 mg/mL) and high membrane stability (IC50: < 0.1 mg/mL) compared to Diclofenac. The essential oils were dominated by eicosane (20.93%, 17.12% and 21.59%) in flowers, leaves and seeds respectively; naphthalene (18.40%) in bark and benzene isothiocyanato methyl (35.83%) in the roots. The results revealed that essential oils from different plant parts of M. oleifera could be explored as potential candidates with alternative or complementary potentials for combating drug resistant bacteria and inflammation.
Highlights
Moringa oleifera is an ancient tree that is traditionally renowned for its numerous nutritional and pharmacological properties
Eicosane was the major component (20.93%, 17.12% and 21.59%) of the oils from the flowers, leaves and seeds respectively, while the oils from the barks and roots had naphthalene (18.40%) and benzene isothiocyanato methyl (35.83%) as the main components
The essential oil from the bark contained Methyl salicylate while isopropyl myristate was found in the root oil alone
Summary
Moringa oleifera is an ancient tree that is traditionally renowned for its numerous nutritional and pharmacological properties. The leaves are rich sources of macroand micro-nutrients. According to Fahey (2005) the leaves are richer in vitamins A and C, calcium, potassium and protein than most conventional sources. All the different parts of the plant are consumed as vegetables and several information of the nutritional properties have been reported (Maponga and Monera (2010; Patel et al, 2010; Amrutia et al, 2011). M. oleifera plant parts have been credited with therapeutic properties against hypertension, convulsions, diabetes, cancer, inflammation, liver diseases, gastric ulcers and skin diseases (Pandey, 2012; Bakre et al, 2013). Essential oil components of Moringa leaf (Kuben and Roger, 2011; Moyo et al, 2013), seed (Chuang et al, 2007) and root (petroleum ether) extract (Mukunzi et al, 2011) have been reported
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