Antioxidant &antimicrobial efficacy of Ficus religiosa L. & Ficus benghalensis L. PLANT

Abstract

Medicinal plants are used to cure variety of diseases for long years. The aim of the study was to identify such plants with antimicrobial and antioxidant efficiency for controlling some disease causing pathogens. The locally available plants like Ficus religiosa and Ficus bengalensis have the capability to cure diseases traditionally since long years, due to this reasons these two plants were selected for the study. Various methods are tried to standardize the extraction of antimicrobial activity. It was found that methanol extraction of two plants that is Ficus religiosa and Ficus benghalensis showed high antimicrobial activity than the aqueous extract against Klebsilla pneumonia species and Bacillus subtilis species. The plant extracts was used to study their photochemical compositions i.e. total phenols contents, flavonoids contents, terpenoids content and proteins contents. Most of the biologically active phytochemicals presents in the methanol extract. For invitro antioxidant activities including 1, 1 -Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging and reducing power activity was performed. In DPPH activity ,when the decrease in absorbance at 517nm it increases the scavenging activity of the plants sample, then the plants sample colour is decolorized due to presence of antioxidant. For DPPH experiment ascorbic acid taken as the standard solution. The another antioxidant activity is reducing power, the result obtained that is all the sample have increased absorbance of reaction mixture and it was indicated the greater reducing power. The results obtained in this study clearly indicated that leaf and bark of Ficus religiosa and Ficus benghalensis have a significant role to use as a natural antioxidant. It experimentally reported by the various extract concentration from Ficus religiosa leaf have interesting antioxidative properties and symbolize a potential source of medicine for the treatment of inflammatory activity and wound healing properties. The results obtained that the antioxidant activity of these plant samples and could be utilized as potential source of natural antioxidant in the food or in pharmaceutical industries.