PHYTOCHEMICAL, ANTIMICROBIAL AND IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT

ABSTRACT

Alstonia boonei, is an important medicinal plant with diverse therapeutic purposes. This sttudy was carried out to investigate the phytochemical composition, antimicrobial and in vitro antioxidant  activities of methanol leaves extracts of Alstonia boonei. The phytochemical qualitatively screening showed the presence of phenols, flavonoid, tannins, alkaloids, saponins, terpnoids, glycosides, steroids, phytosterols and proanthocyanins in varying concentration in A. boonei. Quantitatilvely the phytochemical screening showed the significant concentrations of total phenol(111.14±1.70 mg GAE/g), flavonoids (225.50±15.00 mg QE/g),tannins(175.01±1.00 mg TAE/g) and proanthocyanins( 84.50±2.19 mg AAE/g) contents in the methanol leaves extract of Alstonia boonei. For the antioxidant assays which were evaluated using the DPPH radical scavenging activity (64.47µg/mL), Reducing power, Ferric Reducing antioxidant power(164.5µM/g) and Nitric Oxide inhibition activitiy(76.53µg/mL) of methanol extracts of the leaf of Alstonia boonei was shown to be a moderate free radical scavenger and inhibitor. The antimicrobial assay revealed that  A. boonei has better antifungal properties, compared for it's antibacterial properties.