Analysis of antimicrobial Potential of Moringa oleifera seeds and partial characterization of the active principle

Abstract

ABSTRACT newlineNature has given us a very rich botanical wealth and large number of diverse types of plants with remarkable medicinal, antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. In the present study the methanol, chloroform, aqueous, acetone and ethyl acetate extracts from dry seeds of Moringa oleifera were screened for the occurrence of bioactive compounds and antimicrobial activity. Antioxidant activity of the samples was measured by using DPPH method with IC50 value 4.78. Different phytocompounds were found present in different extracts of M. oleifera seeds. The aqueous extract was further screened for antimicrobial activity against bacteria such as S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, E. coli, MRSA, Bacillus subtilis, K. pneumonia, S. typhi and the diameter of bactericidal inhibition zones were found to be 30, 25, 20, 21 and 17mm, respectively. The comparison of protein profiles of aqueous and PBS extracts of M. oleifera was done on SDS-PAGE, before and after filtration via 10X Centricon (Amicon). The molecular weight of the protein having the greatest intensity band on SDS-PAGE gel was estimated to be of 32 kDa in size. The antimicrobial activity of the filtrate, retinate (concentrate) and the crude form of PBS extracts were checked against randomly selected bacteria i.e., E. coli for comparison, where the PBS extract filterate showed less antimicrobial activity as compare to retinate (concentrate) and crude PBS extracts.Genetic diversity among different seeds of M. oleifera was analyzed using RAPD. Clustering based on RAPD fingerprints data revealed that the samples HP1B and HP2M (from two separate districts of Himachal Pradesh), UK1D and UK2N (from two separate districts of Uttrakhand) and MH1L and MH2P (from two separate districts of Maharashtra) were grouped or got paired-up into three separate clades at similarity level of 88.5%, which revealed that they showed maximum homology within their respective pairs. High level of polymorphism was revealed between the samples from the northern parts and the western parts of the country and showed that the samples were distantly related to each other. newlineKeywords: Moringa oleifera, phytochemicals, antioxidant, DPPH, methanol extract, acetone extract, chloroform extract, ethyl acetate extract, aqueous extract, antimicrobial activity, MIC, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, E. coli, B. subtilis, MRSA, S. typhi, K. pneumoniae, SDS-PAGE and RAPD. newline