Phytochemical screening analysis of eleutherine bulbosa extracts and its potential as antibacterialand antioxidant activity / Natasha Jeffery

Eleutherine bulbosa or bawang Dayak in Malay is a well-known member of the Iridaceae family with a wide range of therapeutic possibilities. The Dayak population has historically utilized the bawang dayak as a folk remedy to treat a variety of illnesses include diabetes, breast cancer, nasal congestion, and infertility issues. E. bulbosa is a revolutionary in both medicine and drug discovery and development due to its naturally occurring antioxidants and antibacterial constituents. However, there were limited studies on the bawang Dayak in Malaysia. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify the phytochemical constituents in Eleutherine bulbosa extract using preliminary phytochemical screening analysis, to investigate the antibacterial activity in Eleutherine bulbosa extracts using the disc diffusion method and to examine the antioxidant abilities in Eleutherine bulbosa extract using the DPPH radical scavenging assay performance. The dried bulbs of Eleutherine bulbosa was extracted using maceration extraction in 95% ethanol. The percentage yield obtained was 2.22%. Meanwhile, the phytochemical screening showed the presence of flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins, and saponins. For antioxidant activity, the E. bulbosa bulb extract inhibits scavenging activity from 30.08% to 48.32%, lower than standard reference, ascorbic acid which varying from 20.16% to 43.68%. Thus, it proved that E. bulbosa bulb extract has good antioxidant activity. Besides, the IC50 value for E. bulbosa extract lower than ascorbic acid which was
5.536 mg/ml and 6.523 mg/ml, respectively. As for antibacterial study, the present study showed that the E. bulbosa bulb extract was active against the gram negative (E. coli) and resistance against gram positive (B. licheniformis). The inhibition zones of E. bulbosa extract against E. coli in three different concentrations (1.25%, 5%, 15%) were 9.7 mm, 12.7 mm, 17.0 mm, respectively, while there was no inhibition zone against B. licheniformis. This might be due to error when conducting the antibacterial study.