Antimicrobial Activity and Phytochemical Analysis of Morinda tinctoria Roxb. Leaf Extracts

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to evaluate the presence of Phytochemical constituents and antimicrobial activity of different extracts of leaves of Morinda tinctoria Roxb. The serial exhaustive extraction was done with a series of solvents: Hexane, Chloroform, Ethylacetate and Methanol with increasing polarity using soxhlet apparatus. The Phytochemical analysis was done by using the standard procedures. Antimicrobial activity was evaluated by Agar well diffusion method against nine human pathogens. The results revealed that the leaf extracts contain a broad spectrum of secondary metabolites: Alkaloids, Phytosterols, Flavonoids, Phenols and Triterpenes in major proportion. Methanol extract was shown to be more effective against all the organisms followed by Ethylacetate, Chloroform and Hexane extracts. Proteus vulgaris (24mm) was found to be most sensitive organism followed by Klebsiella pneumonia (21mm) and Enterococcus feacelis (21mm). The present study concludes that the different extracts of M. tinctoria leaves contain a broad spectrum of secondary metabolites and also exhibit antimicrobial activity against all the tested microorganisms. It can also be concluded that Morinda tinctoria plant can be exploited to discover the bioactive natural products that may serve as leads in the development of new pharmaceuticals.