Anti-bacterial and Anti-oxidant Studies of Extracts from Root of Prunus africana

Abstract

Prunus africana belongs to the Rosaceae family. It is a geographically wide spread tree to forest habitats of the African continent. P. africana is one of the most popular plants in traditional medicine for treating various ailments. It is mainly used to treat benign prostate hyperplasia (BHP). The study was aimed to evaluate the anti-bacterial and anti-oxidant activities of bark of root extract from P. africana. The air dried and powdered plant material (200 g) was first soaked with 500 mL of n-hexane for 72 hours and yielded 2.5 g of n-hexane extract. Residue was soaked with 500 mL of ethyl acetate for 72 hours and afforded 3.7 g of ethyl acetate extract. Finally, residue was soaked with 400 mL of methanol and yielded 14.3 g of methanol extract. The methanol extract showed inhibition zones of 18 and 14 mm against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. The extracts also showed encourage results of DPPH radical scavenging activity at various concentrations. The methanol extract of P. africana of root showed promising activity against E. coli, ATCC25922 and S.aureus, ATCC25922. Anti-oxidant activities also were shown prospective result, selectively at lowest concentration and lowest absorbance. This means the result of the study was confirmed that the lowest concentration of 4 mg/mL and absorbance of 0.112 the scavenging activity was 87.9%, while at the highest concentration of 128 mg/mL and absorbance of 0.172 the scavenging activity was 81.5%.