ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITIES OF Terminalia catappa Linn. LEAVES EXTRACT ON SOME SELECTED Salmonella SPECIES

The aim of this study is to investigate the antimicrobial activity of Terminalia catappa leaves extract against Salmonella species. Leaves samples were collected randomly from T. catappa trees, air dried, pulverized and extracted with distilled water. The extracts were portioned to form three treatments which were boiling, soaking and methanol. The activities of the plant extracts on the microorganism were determined by 96 Well Microtitre Plate method. Ciprofloxacin was used as positive control. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of T. catappa against selected Salmonella species ranged between 1.321 mg/ml to 3.124mg/ml. The Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) of T. catappa against selected Salmonella species ranged between 100mg/ml to 4000mg/ml. The results obtained from the antibacterial analysis of the treatments of T. catappa were statistically analyzed by using one-way Analysis of variance (ANOVA) which revealed that there was no significant difference in the effect of the T. catappa (F cal=67.02 at 0.01). The qualitative screening revealed that Alkaloids, Tannins, Steroids, Saponins and Reducing sugar were present in the extract of T. catappa. The study revealed that T. catappa extracts contains bioactive constituents with high antimicrobial activity against Salmonella species and could potentially possess rich medicinal constituents when subjected to further chemical and pharmacological studies.