Phytochemical screening, antibacterial and antifungal activity of pithecellobium jiringa twigs / Nor Syairah Jamal

The aim of this study was to investigate the phytochemical analysis, antibacterial and
antifungal activity with three different crude extracts; hexane extract, ethyl acetate
extract and methanol extract in P.jiringa twigs. The properties of P.jiringa twigs were
discovered and observed with several tests and analysis. The study on phytochemical
screening revealed the presence of secondary metabolites such as alkaloids, flavonoids,
tannins, terpenoids and saponins in P.jiringa twigs that indicating the potential of plant
as traditional medicines. These chemical constituents also found in TLC by using
different conditions such as Vanillin/H2S04 reagent, FeCl3) reagent, DragendorfI's
reagent, evaporated iodine vapour, UV (254 nm) and UV (360 nm) that indicated
different chemical compounds. The antibacterial and antifungal properties were
determined by using disc diffusion method with different concentrations of solvent
extractions against two gram-positive bacterial strains: Staphylococcus aureus,
Staphylococcus epidermidis and fungi yeast Candida albicans. These microorganisms
have a potential to cause some disease such as pneumonia, catheter infections and yeast
infection in the vagina. The result showed that the crude extract of the P.jiringa twigs
can inhibit the microbial growth of S.aureus and S.epidermidis but notable to inhibited
on C.albicans. The methanol extract showed higher or active inhibition on
microorganisms compared with ethyl acetate extracts. The bioautography assay was
tested to prove the existence of secondary metabolites in the plant that have potential to
inhibit the microorganisms. Therefore, in this study revealed that Pjiringa twigs have a
potential to acts as antimicrobial or therapeutic agent and potential as alternative to
current antibiotics.