Pages: (1-7 )
Abstract
The emergence of multidrug resistant bacteria has spurred diverse search for new antimicrobial agents. Agricultural wastes like the water melon rind would be a good source of such natural product since they do not threaten food security.Fresh and oven-dried watermelon rinds were serially extracted with n-hexane and methanol, using maceration and soxhlet extraction methods respectively. These extracts were subjected to antibacterial assay using the agar well diffusion method and the most active of the extracts was subjected to column chromatography (CC). Antibacterial activity was determined for each fraction combination. Six extracts were obtained and the phytochemical screening revealed the presence of phenols/tannins, saponins, steroids, cardiac glycosides, flavonoids and lipids. The oven-dried methanolic extract (MO) showed the highest zone of inhibition (ZOI) of 8 mm and was further subjected to column chromatography. The CC yielded some fractions which showed higher zone of inhibition against Proteus sp., Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853) while all the fractions showed lower ZOI against Staphylococcus sp. Therefore, watermelon rind could be an abundant source of antimicrobial extracts whose antibacterial activity could be enhanced by employing chromatographic fractionation.
Keywords: Waste; Water melon; Phytochemicals; Antimicrobial; Chromatography,