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. aerugenosaand B. pumalis, respectively. On the contrary, no activity of this fraction was recorded against Streptococcus pneumoniae. The crude, n-hexane, 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.

Abbreviation

MIC₅₀, Minimal inhibitory concentration required to inhibit the growth of 50% of organisms; TB, tuberculosis; MDR-TB, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis; DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide.