Phytochemical Investigation And Antibacterial Activities Of The Leaves Of Kalanchoe Pinnata.

Abstract

The plant K.Pinnata is mostly found on plains, tropical and temperate regions of Africa, Australia and America and has a wide ethno medicinal use for the treatment of various diseases. These include its use for healing bacterial infections on cuts and wounds and applied externally to heal ulcers and reduce body temperature, vomiting, earache, smallpox, cough, and headache. This study was directed towards organic solvents (n-hexane, EtOAc and methanol) extraction, isolation, and structural elucidation of compounds from the leaves of a medicinal plant Kalanchoe pinnata using chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques. Moreover, antibacterial activity determination of the crude extracts and isolated compounds were carried out against some selected bacterial strains. The antibacterial test was performed using disc diffusion method against selected gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial strains by observing the zone of inhibition. The ethyl acetate extract showed colored spots on TLC and hence subjected to fractionation over silica gel column chromatography which led to the isolation of three compounds KP-1 (tetra decanoic acid), KP-2 (Z)-hexadec-9-enoic acid and the third compound KP-3 is a diterpene derivative. These compounds were not reported before from this plant leave. The ethyl acetate crude plant extract and the isolated compounds (KP-1 and KP-2) were tested for their antibacterial activity against S. aurens, E. coli, P. mirabilis and K. pneumonia compared with Gentamycin as standard drug. Compound KP-2 showed remarkable activity with acceptable selectivity against p. mirabilis bacteria with 16mm inhibition diameter compared with standard drug Gentamycin inhibition diameter of 15mm. However, the ethyl acetate extract and KP-1 has moderate anti bacterial activities of 11mm maximum inhibition diametr against the tested bacterial strains compared with the standard drug (Gentamycin). The obtained results rationalize the folkloric use of the plant and can be further investigated to isolate the active compounds responsible for the biological activities.