Evaluation of phytochemical and antimicrobial properties of leaf extracts of Ardisia solanacea collected from Pathiramanal Island, Alappuzha District, Kerala State, India

Abstract

Ardisia solanacea is a large evergreen shrub growing up to a height of 1.5 to 4 meter tall and native to Bangladesh, China, India, Malaya, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. A. solanacea is a one of the important herb reported to contain an array of phytochemicals and is widely used as food and in traditional medicine. The objective of this study was to analyze the phytochemicals present in the dried leaf samples and to evaluate its antibacterial and antifungal properties. For the evaluation of antibacterial and antifungal properties, agar well diffusion method was used. Phytosterols, phenols and tannins were present in all solvent extracts. Higher antibacterial activity was observed in aqueous hot leaf extract against Staphylococcus epidermidis (13 mm), Escherichia coli (12 mm) and Xanthomonas campestris (12 mm) and methanol cold extract showed the highest activity against Bacillus cereus (8 mm), Klebsiella pneumoniae (9 mm), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (10 mm) and Vibrio parahaemolyticus (8mm). Only methanol hot extract showed antifungal properties against Aspergillus fumigatus , Fusarium oxysporum , Rhizoctonia solani and Trichophyton rubrum .