Abstract

PRELIMINARY PHYTOCHEMICAL AND ANTIBACTERIAL STUDY OF HOLARRHENA PUBESCENS BUCH. HAM. LEAVES

Santanu Saha*, Divya Jyothi, Prashant Nayak, Shashidhara C. Shastry

ABSTRACT

Holarrhena pubescens Buch. Ham. (Apocynaceae), an Indian traditional medicinal plant, is commonly known as Kurchi and Indrayava in India. Traditionally this plant is used to treat various ailments. Many scientific studies reported several therapeutic efficacy of the plant and the presence of various phytoconstituents. In the present study, we have selected the leaves of Holarrhena pubescens for carrying out extraction, fractionation, preliminary phytochemical test of fraction and preliminary antibacterial activity by in vitro study. The dried leaves of Holarrhena pubescens were extracted with ethanol by maceration method and fractionated successively by petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and methanol. The ethanolic extract and all the fractions of plant material were then subjected to preliminary phytochemical screening which showed the presence of various phytoconstituents like alkaloids, glycosides, tannins, triterpenoids, steroids etc. The ethanolic extract and different fractions of ethanolic extract of leaves of Holarrhena pubescens were evaluated for antibacterial activity at 100 μg/ml concentration by cup-plate method. In the result, the plant material showed the antibacterial effect at 100 μg/ml concentration against gram positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. In the study, the antibacterial efficacy of plant was evaluated by measuring the diameter of zone of inhibition which was compared with standard antibiotic drug Streptomycin (5μg/disc) in Cup-plate method. Among all the fractions of ethanolic extract of plant material chloroform fraction (HPC) and ethyl acetate fraction (HPEA) showed potent effect in inhibition of bacterial growth. Hence, the study confirmed the antibacterial activity of ethanolic extract of leaves of Holarrhena pubescens.

Keywords: Alkaloids, Antibacterial activity, Apocynaceae, Cup-plate method, Holarrhena pubescens, Streptomycin.