Abstract
Kola acuminate is a “cure‐all” herbal medicine in Jamaica. Kola acuminate (Bizzy nut), contains a putative phytochemical compound with a variety of bioactivity. Crude Kola extracts were found to exhibit important inhibitory activities against the growth of certain bacteria and fungi. However, the problem is that the specific phytochemicals responsible for this bioactivity have not been identified. Therefore, we hypothesized that solid‐liquid extractions of Bizzy nut, followed by an antimicrobial screening (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration, MIC) would reveal its chemotaxonomic significance. As an initial method for identifying phytochemicals responsible for antimicrobial activity, we performed solid‐liquid extractions, using solvents of increasing polarity to identify and characterize putative antimicrobial compounds present in Bizzy nut. A sample of finely ground Bizzy nut was sequentially extracted in a Soxhlet apparatus using 100mL of 100% hexane, ether, acetone, methane, or water to produce five independent extracts of unique polarity. The antimicrobial activity of each extract was carried out using Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as test organisms. Our current results show that the ether (Biz‐2) and the acetone (Biz‐3) extract, possess antimicrobial activity on Staphylococcus aureus at concentrations as low as 1E5ppm, having comparable diameters of zones of inhibitions of 15±0.13mm and 20.0±0.5mm respectively. Surprisingly, none of our extracts showed antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa in our initial screen. Our conclusion from this work is that the ether and/or acetone extract of Kola acuminate, contains antimicrobial bioactivity compounds.
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