Screening of Zizyphus jujuba for antibacterial, phytotoxic and haemagglutination activities

Abstract

Plants are very useful, self-generating machines, producing a variety of useful bioactive products. Keeping in view this idea, the crude methanolic extract and various fractions of Zizyphus jujuba were screened for antibacterial, phytotoxic and haemagglutination activities. The n-hexane and aqueous fractions showed significant activity of 60 and 66.66% against Bacillus pumalis and Pseudomonas aerugenosa, respectively. Activity of ethyl acetate fraction was 65.38, 62.96, 62.96 and 72% against Staphylococcus epidermidis, Salmonella typhi, P. aerugenosa and B. pumalis, respectively. On the contrary, no activity of this fraction was recorded against Streptococcus pneumoniae. The crude, nhexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and aqueous fractions showed 41.37, 44.82, 41.37, 55.17 and 44.82% activity against Enterobacter aerogenes, respectively. The crude methanolic extract and n-hexane fractions were inactive against Escherichia coli, S. pneumoniae and Klebsella pneumoniae, respectively. The ethyl acetate fraction was moderately phytotoxic against Lemna minor L at 1000 μg/ml. All the other fractions showed low phytotoxic activity at 1000 μg/ml. At 100 μg/ml, all the  fractions showed low phytotoxic activity except crude methanolic extract, which was inactive. All the test samples were inactive at 10 μg/ml. All dilutions of the test samples showed no haemagglutination activity against any blood group.

Key words: Zizyphus jujuba, antibacterial, phytotoxic, haemagglutination, Lemna minor, minimal inhibitory concentration.