EVALUATION OF ANTIOXIDANT, ANTIBACTERIAL, ANTIHEMOLYTIC, AND PHYOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF FICUS BENJAMINA, FICUS INFECTORIA, AND FICUS KRISHNAE

Abstract

Objective: The study was conducted for the evaluation of antioxidant, antibacterial, antihemolytic, and phytochemical activity of Ficus benjamina (FB), Ficus infectoria (FI), and Ficus krishnae (FK). Methods: The antioxidant analysis of FB, FI, and FK was done by 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging and nitric oxide (NO) scavenging assay. Evaluation was performed for antibacterial activity against Clostridium perfringens and Staphylococcus aureus by an agar well diffusion method. Hemolytic assay was performed with red blood cell suspension for evaluating antihemolytic activity. Standard protocols were used for phytochemical activity. Results: In the results of DPPH antioxidant activity assay, it was found that DPPH inhibition was significantly increased with increasing amount of extract. For NO scavenging assay, ANOVA revealed that the inhibition of NO is not significantly affected with an increase in the amount of extract used. Results of antibacterial activity revealed that methanolic extract of FI shows a maximum zone of inhibition (30.5 mm) against S. aureus and aqueous extract of FK shows a maximum zone of inhibition (28 mm) against C. perfringens. The antihemolytic activity of FB, FI, and FK was performed by measuring percentage inhibition of plant extracts at different concentrations. FK has shown maximum percentage inhibition activity, i.e., 28.64 % at 60 μg/ml, whereas FB shows minimum inhibition activity, i.e. 2.7 % at 40 μg/ml. Flavonoid content was found to be 0.593 μg/ml, 0.783 μg/ml, and 1.023 μg/ml, whereas phenolic content was found to be 0.267 μg/ml, 0.298 μg/ml, and 0.355 μg/ml for FB, FI, and FK, respectively. Conclusion: FB, FI, and FK extracts contain various phytochemicals which confirm that these plants can be used for therapeutic use and traditional medicine. The methanolic as well as aqueous extracts of the plants have shown the potential to kill the tested microorganism (C. perfringens and S. aureus) and hence can be used as an antibiotic and potential antibacterial.