Abstract
This study was carried out on phytochemicals and in vitro screening of antibacterial potentials of ethanolic, methanolic and acetonic extracts of stem bark and leaves of Neem plant (<i>Azadirachta indica</i>) by using the methods of AOAC; and agar diffusion technique. The extracts of the leaves and the stem bark were prepared and screened for the presence of different phytochemicals. The results obtained showed that both the leaf and stem bark extracts contain alkaloid, flavonoid, reducing sugar, tannin, saponin and polyphenol. The extracts were tested against selected pathogens; <i>Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albicans </i>by using agar well diffusion technique. In this present research work, the acetonic, ethanolic and methanolic leaves and bark extracts of Neem plant were investigated for antimicrobial activity against these selected pathogens. The Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were determined. The MIC for the bacterial isolates was 25 mg / ml of the leaf extracts and that for stem bark was 6.25 mg / ml. The MBC was 25 mg / ml. Results showed that the bark extract exhibited strongest antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi at different concentrations when compared with the activity of the leaf extract. The acetonic stem bark extract had the highest antibacterial activity with a zone of inhibition of 22 mm, and then followed closely by the stem bark's ethanol extract with a zone of inhibition of 21 mm. More so, the methanolic stem bark extract had the highest antifungal activities with a zone of inhibition of 22.50 mm. Thus, this work showed that both leaf and stem bark extracts had some phytochemicals and antimicrobial activity.
Highlights
In recent years, secondary plant metabolites, with unknown pharmacological activities have been extensively investigated as a source of medicinal agents been produced [4,5,6]
Plants produce a diverse range of bioactive molecules, making them rich sources of different types of medicines and foods. Plant that produces such product, antimicrobial activities should be tested against appropriate microbes to confirm the activity and to ascertain the parameters associate with it, and this leads to the results obtained from this research work on phytochemicals and in vitro screening of antibacterial potentials of acetonic, ethanolic, and methanolic extracts of stem bark and leaves of Neem plant (Azadirachta indica), procedures of analysis were done on six organisms (3 bacteria and 3 fungi) were that: Table 1 showed the serial dilution, the concentrations obtained after the 2 – fold serial dilutions before incubation were for quality control, the Neem extracts were separately cultured on Muller Hinton Agar (MHA) and Sabouraud Dextrose Agar (SDA) to determine their purity
The results of this study revealed that Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for leaf acetonic extract was 25 mg / ml for all organisms except C. albicans which was 12.5 mg / ml
Summary
Secondary plant metabolites (photochemical), with unknown pharmacological activities have been extensively investigated as a source of medicinal agents been produced [4,5,6]. According to World Health Organization (WHO) medicinal plants would be the best source to obtain a variety of drugs [22]. Many parts of this plant (leaves, stem bark, and latex) have reported to exhibit. There are more than 35,000 plants species with various phytochemicals in them being used in various human cultures and veterinary around the world for medicinal purposes. Any plant derived chemical is called a Phytochemical. These phytonutrients differ from traditional nutrients, because they are not essential for life. They are primarily called Phytochemical for clarity [4,25,23]
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