Antimicrobial activity of bioactive compounds and leaf extracts in Jatropha tanjorensis.

Objectives: Jatropha tanjorensis was investigated scientifically to generate evidence for the efficacies reported in traditional systems and the results are given here.

Methods: Different concentrations of the solvent extracts of leaves and four isolated compounds were tested against human pathogenic microorganisms such as gram-positive bacteria of Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermis, gram-negative bacteria of Aeromonas hydrophila, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus mirabilis, Proteus vulgaris, Salmonella paratyphi, Salmonella paratyphi A, Vibrio alcaligenes, Vibrio cholerae and fungi of Aspergillus fumigatus, Candida albicans, Microsporum gypseum and Trichophyton rubrum by agar-well diffusion and disk diffusion methods.

Results: In agar-well diffusion method, maximum activity was recorded in a concentration-dependent manner. The extracts recorded activity against bacteria such as 17-26, 15-25 and 13-24 mm to methanol extract and 15-24, 14-23 and 12-22 mm to chloroform extract at 50, 25 and 12.5 mg/ml respectively and fungi such as 9-15 mm to A. fumigatus and 5-16 mm to T. rubrum. Maximum activity was 30-46, 27-43 and 17-40 mm to friedelin and 23-46, 28-44 and 18-41 mm to R (+) 4-hydroxy-2-pyrrolidinone against bacteria and 12-37, 8-34 and 31-33 mm to friedelin and 12-40, 11-35 and 10-33 mm to R (+) 4-hydroxy-2-pyrrolidinone against fungi at 10, 5 and 2.5mg respectively.

Conclusions: The present study concludes that friedelin, β-amyrin, stigmasterol and R (+) 4-hydroxy-2-pyrrolidinone present in the methanol extract could be responsible for the broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity and provide scientific evidence.