Preliminary Phytochemical and Antimicrobial Screening of Some Medicinal Plants Used in Tuberculosis Treatment and Its Related Symptoms

Abstract

The study is aimed at evaluating some medicinal plants used traditionally to treat tuberculosis and related symptoms. The stem-barks from 10 plants species were prepared using methanol by Soxhlet and was partitioned with n-butanol and water. The extracts were evaluated for the presence of phytochemicals and antimicrobial activity against six microorganisms using agar well and micro dilution assay. The qualitative phytochemical screening revealed the presence of some of phytochemicals such as tannins, phenols, saponins, glycocide, alkaloids, flavonoids and steriods The quantitative estimation revealed that Anogeissus leiocarpus has the highest percentage of alkaloids (10.50%), tannins (4.97%), saponins (11.32%) and flavonoids (15.8%). Ficus trichopoda recorded the lowest percentage of alkaloids (0.45%), tannins (0.43%). Saponins and flavonoids are the lowest in Bombax constantum. Echinaceae angustifolia has the highest percentage of steroids (0.29%) and lowest is for Anogeissus leiocarpus (0.13%). The antimicrobial activity of the methanol extract showed good activity against the microbial strains. The zones of inhibition ranged from 17 – 23 mm for Staphylococcus aureus, 17 – 24 mm for Bacillus subtilis, 16 – 30 mm for Escherichia  coli, 12 – 34 mm for Klebsiella pneumoniae and 13 – 23 mm for Candida albicans. For n-butanol extract the zones of inhibition were found to be between 3 – 10 mm for Staphylococcus aureus, 4 – 11 mm for Bacillus subtilis, 11 –12 mm for Escherichia coli, 8 mm for Klebsiella pneumoniae and 7 – 9 mm for Candid albicans. For the aqueous extracts, the zones of inhibition were found to be between 19 – 25 mm for Staphylococcus aureus, 11 – 22 mm for Bacillus subtilis, 10 – 33 mm for E. coli, 13 – 34 mm for Klebsiella pneumonia and 10 – 20 mm for Candida albicans.  The minimum inhibitory concentration values of the tested plant extracts ranged from 1 - 5 mg/ml in all the extracts. The results from this study indicate that these plants are a viable potential source of products active against pathogenic microorganism.