English

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the antioxidant, antimicrobial and thrombolytic potentials of the exocarp of Spondias pinnata fruits. The crude ethanolic extract of the exocarp of S. pinnata fruit was partitioned successively by solvents of different polarity. All fractions were then investigated for qualitative preliminary phytochemical screening by specific standard procedure. The antioxidant potential of all fractions were then evaluated in terms of total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, DPPH free radical scavenging potential, reducing potential and total antioxidant capacity by specific standard procedure. The disc diffusion method was incorporated to evaluate the in vitro antimicrobial activity on nutrient agar medium. The highest total phenolic content was found in aqueous fraction (570.20±0.48 mg GAE/g of dried extract) while the lowest in the n-Hexane fraction (337.51±0.21 mg GAE/g of dried extract). However, ethyl acetate fraction exhibited the highest flavonoid content which amounted to 132.27±0.25 mg quercetin equivalents/g of dried extract. Likewise, ethyl acetate fraction showed the highest antioxidant capacity (21.61±0.11 g of L-ascorbic acid equivalents/g of dried extract) along with the lowest IC50 (1.72±0.39 µg/ml) & EC50 (2.25±0.75 µg/ml) value. However, DPPH free radical scavenging activity and reducing power of all fractions were found to be concentration dependent. Nonetheless, comparatively more polar fractions (ethyl acetate and aqueous fraction) were found to be ineffective against all the microbial strains except S. dysentery and P. aeruginosa while non- polar fractions (n-hexane and dichloromethane fraction) showed variable antimicrobial activity. In addition, all fractions produced statistically significant (P<0.05 for ethyl acetate and aqueous fraction, P<0.001 for others) thrombolytic activity. To conclude, our present study suggested that exocarp of S. pinnata fruit exhibits antimicrobial activity against a wide variety of strains while it produces noteworthy