Antimicrobial resistance is a worldwide problem that has deleterious long-term effects as the development of drug resistance outpaces the development of new drugs. Plants have been used for many generations for healing purposes, and screening of extracts of these plants has often yielded positive outcomes. This study was aimed at isolating and characterizing the major active antimicrobial compounds present in the stem bark of C. molle, in a bid to identify potential sources of cheap starting materials for the synthesis of new drugs. Various solvents (hexane, ethyl acetate, dichloromethane, acetone, ethanol and methanol) were used for extraction. The agar well diffusion technique was used to screen for antimicrobial activity of C. molle extracts against Streptococcus pyogenes ATCC 49399, Plesiomonas shigelloides ATCC 51903, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15442, Helicobacter pylori ATCC 43526 and Helicobacter pylori 252C (clinical isolate); minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) of the most active extracts was determined by the broth dilution method. Fractionation of acetone extract was done by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and bioautography to determine the compounds present and their antimicrobial activity respectively. The acetone extract was purified by column chromatography and their MIC determined. The most potent fraction (EA4) was subjected to Gas chromatography- Mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for identification of the active compounds. Results were analyzed by the Fisher‟s exact test. All the extracts tested demonstrated antimicrobial activity with zone diameters of inhibition ranging from 0–32 mm. Acetone was the most potent extract with its MIC ranging from 0.078–5.0 mg/mL. Seventeen fractions were collected from column chromatography and the most active fraction against all the organisms was EA 4 (eluted with 100 percent ethyl acetate), with its MIC ranging from 0.078 - 2.5mg/mL. There was no statistically significant difference (P>0.05) in the potency of the xii four extracts (acetone, methanol, ethanol and ethyl acetate) and antibiotic (ciprofloxacin) on the different bacterial strains tested, likewise the crude extract and the fractions. No compound was detected by GC-MS whereas numerous peaks were identified by HPLC implying that the active compounds in this plant are non volatile. We could not identify the compounds thereby proposing further studies using Nuclear magnetic resonance to identify the compounds. The study revealed that the acetone extract of C. molle was the most active against all the test organisms and therefore justifies the use of this plant in traditional medicine.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:11261 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Nyenje, Mirriam, E |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Science & Agriculture |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc (Microbiology) |
| Format | 114 leaves; 30 cm, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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