Chemical investigation, the antibacterial and antifungal activity of different parts of Capparis spinosa extracts

Abstract

Capparis spinosa (Capparidacea), is one of the most used medicinal plants worldwide. It is used for the treatment of various diseases because of its biological and pharmacological effect, such as antioxidant, anticancer, antihypertensive, antidiabetic and antibacterial. Phytochemical analysis of the plant showed that it is a rich source of bioactive constituents, including alkaloids, glucosinolates, tocopherols, carotenoids and polyphenols, which have led to C. spinosa being considered as a promising medicinal plant. Our study aims to detail the chemical profiles of the present bioactive responsible for the pharmacological effects of C. spinosa; it also aims to experimentally demonstrate the presence of polyphenols in different parts of the plant as well as their antimicrobial effects. For this, we used methanolic and aqueous extracts of the different parts of the plant picked in Beni Aziz in the Sétif region (North-east of Algeria). The extracts subjected to TLC and HPLC showed that they were rich in flavonoids and phenolic acids. This led to find that rutin was the most dominant compound in most of our extracts. On the other hand, the antimicrobial effect was tested by the disk diffusion method on three bacterial strains: E. coli, P. aeruginosa and S. aureus and two fungi: C. albicans and A. flavus. Candida albicans’s antifungal effect of our extracts was absent. While the same extracts showed a slight inhibitory activity against Aspergillus flavus. As for the antibacterial effect, it exists only for the methanolic extract of the twigs against Staphylococcus aureus. While the other extracts only showed a slight inhibitory activity against the same strain. The other strains of bacteria were resistant to all extracts at any used concentration.
 Keywords: Capparis spinosa, Pharmacological effect, Chemical investigation, antibacterial activity, phenolic compounds, antifungal activity.