Assessment of Antibacterial Activities and Phytochemical Screening of Leaf and Fruit of Solanum marginatum

Abstract

Among medicinal plants that have vast array of medicinal uses by the community is Solanum marginatum. In this study the antibacterial activities of petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of both leaf and fruit of Solanum marginatum were investigated against Staphylococcus-aureus ATCC 25923, Escherichia coli ATCC 35218, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853 and Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 strains using agar-diffusion method. The fruit extracts showed antibacterial activity, with the methanol extract of the same part of the plant is the most active. Whereas, the leaf extract showed no remarkable activity against the four examined bacterial strains. The extracts were also subjected to preliminary phytochemical screening. The phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, saponins and quinone in the most active extract of such plant