International Journal of Biology Research

Authors
R Mangalanayaki, B Sivaneshwari

Abstract
The objective of the present work is to evaluate the presence of Phytochemical constituents and antimicrobial activity of different extracts of leaves of Morinda tinctoria. The serial exhaustive extraction was done with a series of solvents: Hexane, Ethylacetate and Methanol with increasing polarity using soxhlet apparatus. The Phytochemical analysis was done by using the standard procedures. Antimicrobial activity was evaluated by Agar well diffusion method against human pathogens. The results revealed that the leaf extracts contain a broad spectrum of secondary metabolites: Alkaloids, Flavonoids, Phenols and in major proportion. Methanol extract was shown to be more effective against all the organisms followed by Ethylacetate and Hexane extracts. Proteus vulgaris (35mm) was found to be most sensitive organism followed by Klebsiella pneumonia (33mm) and Staphylococcus aureus (34mm). The present study concludes that the different extracts of M. tinctoria leaves contain a broad spectrum of secondary metabolites and also exhibit antimicrobial activity against all the tested microorganisms. It can also be concluded that Morinda tinctoria plant can be exploited to discover the bioactive natural products that may serve as leads in the development of new pharmaceuticals.