Abstract

ANALYSIS OF PHYTOCHEMICAL, ANTIOXIDANT AND MICROBIAL PROPERTY OF VARIOUS EXTRACTS OF THE PLANT MELILOTUS INDICA

Jafrin Jobayer Sonju*, MD. Fokhrul Islam, Kakan Sutradhar, Taslima Akter

Abstract

Melilotus indica is a plant commonly known as ‘Banmethi’ in Bangladesh. It is a herb which has long been used traditionally for various medicinal purposes in all over the world. Being the member of Fabaceae family it claims a number of medicinal uses. In view of this, the present study was conducted to evaluate the phytochemical, antioxidant activity and microbial property of various extract of the leaf of the plant Malilotus indica. As evident from the phytochemical screening, leaf of Melilotus indica gave positive reaction for carbohydrates, glycosides (general test) and saponins. Methanolic and ethanolic extracts gave positive reactions for steroid. In case of alkaloid test, leaf of Melilotus indica gave positive reactions for mendroayer’s reagent, hager’s reagent, wagner’s reagent and dragdroff’s reagent for both ethanoic and chloroformic extracts. The antioxidant activity of the different extracts of Melilotus indica was evaluated using different methods like total phenol content determination, determination of flavonoid content, determination of total anitioxident capacity and DPPH radical scavenging assay. The extracts were found to posses moderate amount of phenolics, flavonoids and total antioxidant capacity expressed as gallic acid equivalent(GAE), quercetin equivalent(QE) and ascorbic acid(AAE) equivalent respectively. In DPPH radical scavenging assays, the crude extract of Melilotus indica leaf showed dose dependent scavenging of DPPH radicals in a way similar to that of the reference antioxidant ascorbic acid. In antimicrobial activity test, the antimicrobial screening of methanolic extract of Melilotus indica leaf shows sensitivity to gram positive organism Staphylococcus aureus but shows resistance to gram negative organism Escherichia coli. The result of the investigation of the present study lend partial scientific support in favor of the traditional use of Melilotus indica, while traditional use varies among the local practitioners and scientific evidence that support the traditional uses is not well established yet. Thus the plant deserve extensive and well-designed research on the basis of the current study results. It will help to find bioactive compounds as new lead compounds which could be responsible for their antioxidant and microbial actions.

Keywords: Melilotus indica, phytochemical screening, antioxidant activity, property.