Phytochemical Study and Antimicrobial Activity of Two Medicinal Plants from Al-Baha Region

Abstract

The plant is a huge therapeutic source with enormous applications in curative industry. For new sources of antimicrobial agents, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and n–butanol extracts of two medicinal plants (Dodonaea viscose and Capparis spinosa) were prepared by liquid – liquid extraction. The plants were collected from Shuda mountain / Al-Baha region/ Saudi Arabia and then evaluated systematically. Phytochemical screening tests detect the existence of flavonoids, alkaloids, tannin, terponoids, saponnins and carbohydrates in most of the performed extracts. Antimicrobial activity was assessed against five bacterial and one fungal race. The extracts of the two plants leaves showed wide vision antibacterial activity and significant antifungal activity. The antibacterial activity (zone of inhibition) of Dodonaea viscose species varied from 30 to 18 mm, whereas of Capparis spinosa the range from 20 to 16 mm for ethyl acetate extracts, for n- butanol extracts the inhibition zone differ from 15 – 10 and 16 - 10 mm respectively. These results indicated that antimicrobial activities of plant species differ to a wide range not only between species themselves but also within the tests for antimicrobial evaluation. The current result supports the medicinal use of the leaves of these studied plants which works as an antimicrobial agent. These results compare to other studies carried out for the same plants in different countries in different environments exhibited diverse outcome in chemical constituents in the plant extracts and in their effects on tested types of micro organismswhich may have been due to a number of factors, including geographical location, season and environmental factors, and the method of extraction. This study for the two plant species was first time performed in this area of Saudi Arabia.