Phytochemical Analysis, Antibacterial and Antioxidant Activity of Stem Extracts of Azadirachta indica

Azadirachta indica is one of the most versatile medicinal plants having a wide spectrum of biological activity due to the presence of large number of bioactive compounds. The result of phenolic content estimation in methanol and ethanol crude extract was found to be 162.87±1.25 and 126.57±0.288 mg of GAE/g of extract respectively. The antioxidant activities of methanolic stem extracts of Azadirachta indica were screened using 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryhydrazyl and ferric reducing power assay. The extract exhibited high antiradical activity against DPPH. The Reducing power increased with increasing concentration of the sample. Quantitatively the radical scavenging and reducing capacity of the crude methanolic extract were found to be 445.04±7.04mg and 310.61±0.364mg of mgAAE/100g respectively. Antibacterial determination the inhibition zones (in mm) of ethanol extract were found 13.33±0.0577 and 11.33±0.577 against E. coli and S. aureus respectively. The methanol extract also showed 10.33±1.155 and 9.66±0.577 inhibition zone against E. coli and S. aureus respectively. Petroleum ether stem extracts had no antibacterial activities against both bacterial strains. Most of these phytochemical compounds are present in the methanol and ethanol extracts. But for the petroleum ether extract terpenoids are only present. Moreover, except petroleum ether, methanolic and ethanolic extracts of Azadirachta indica showed good antioxidant and antibacterial activity. Key words: Azadirachta indicia; Phenolic content; Antioxidant activity; Antibacterial activity