Antifungal activities of Entada spiralis crude extracts against damping off disease / Aiza Harun, Neni Kartini Che Mohd Ramli and Siti Zaiton Mat So'ad

Entada spiralis which is traditionally known as 'beluru' or 'sintok' is a liana or woody climber that grows wildly in Malaysia. From generation, it is believed that the stem bark and its fruit were used traditionally for many years in the health care system such as shampoo, body wash and to treat syphilis, insect bites and blood defecate. However, the stem bark and the leaves of this species have not been studied pharmacologically by any researchers. Our current study is carrying out the extraction of stem bark and leaves of Entada sp. by using organic solvents with different polarity and to test the bioactivity of the crude extraction. The ground air dried stem and leaves were soaked at room temperature in petroleum ether, chloroform and methanol. Bioactivity of the crudes extracts of both stem and leaves were tested on antimicrobial activity. Four species of fungal plant pathogens were tested for antifungal activity i.e. Rhizoctonia solani, Pythium sp., Fusarium sp. and Phytophthora sp. And four species of bacterial pathogens i.e. Xanthomonas citri, Erwinia sp., Pseudomonas sp. and Bacillus subtilis. The in vitro antimicrobial activities of Entada sp. extracts against bacterial revealed the inhibition zone observed for Bacillus substilis for all crude extracts of leaves and methanol crude extract and chloroform crude extracts for stem. The crude extracts of leaves slightly inhibited the Xanthomonas citri regarding to the little trace of inhibition zone. On the other hand, no inhibition zone occurs for Pseudomonas sp. and Erwinia for all crude extracts of leaves and stem. The in vitro antifungal activities of Entada sp. extracts against fungal plant pathogens revealed that the methanolic crude extract of the stem give a very good inhibition against Fusarium sp. whereas there is no inhibitions occur on Rhizoctonia solani, Pythium sp. and Phytophthora sp.. The leaves crude extracts of Entada sp. do not shows any inhibition activities against all tested fungal pathogens.