Phytocemical lnvestigation of Antimicrobial Extracts Of Zaleya pentandra (L) Jeffrey

Abstract

The plant Zaleya pentandra (I) Jefiiey (Aizoaceae) was collected at the Nile Street (Khartoum State), and voucher specimens have been deposited at the Herbarium of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research Institute. The plant extracts were prepared by extraction with solvents different in polarity in a Soxhlet apparatus. The prepared extracts were phytochemically screened and the results indicated the presence of flavonoids, sterols, triterpenes, alkaloids, tannins and saponins. The plant extracts were also screened for their antimicrobial activity against five bacteria : Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and two fungi: Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger. The methanolic extract proved to be the most active and was subjected to further investigation after the usual _work up. Column chromatographic fractionation and preparative TLC ended up with the isolation of eight pure compounds from the active fractions. The infra red spectroscopic studies suggested that the compounds could be acyclic or cyclic unsaturated alcohols with possible glycosidic moieties.