Abstract:
Solanum anguivi is one of the ethno-medicinal plants that have a potential of therapeutic functions. Traditional practitioners believe that it reduces the risk of diabetes and arthrosclerosis diseases. The present study is conducted to investigate the anti-oxidant and antibacterial activities of phytochemicals contained in the n-hexane, dichloromethane and ethanol extracts of the fruits of Solanum anguivi. Qualitative phytochemical screening of the crude extracts obtained from the fruits of the plant indicated the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, phenols, glycosides, steroids, terpenoids, saponins and tannins. Three gummy compounds were isolated from dichloromethane crude extracts and characterized by FT-IR and UV-Vis. Qualitative phytochemical test of those isolated compounds gives positive result for flavonoid (compound-1 and compound-2) and tannin for compound-2. The highest total phenolic and total flavonoid content was obtained in ethanol extract, followed by dichloromethane and nhexane extract. All crude extracts of Solanum anguivi fruit and isolated compounds exhibited antioxidant activity as revealed by DPPH and FRAP assays. All fruit extracts and isolated compounds showed antibacterial activity against gram positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes) and gram negative (Escherichia coli and, K. pneumonia) bacteria. The result showed that the crude extracts of Solanum anguivi fruit and isolated compounds were more active on gram positive bacteria than gram negative bacteria.