Phytochemical and Antifungal Studies of Tapinathus globiferus Extract and Fractions

Abstract

T. globiferus growing on Tamarindus indica is a hemi-parasitic plant used in ethomomedicine to treat different ailment including fungal infections. The aim of the study was to conduct phytochemical and antifungal studies of T. globiferus growing on Tamarindus indica. The plant material was collected, identified and air dried. Powdered plant material was subjected to maceration using methanol to obtained crude methanol leaf extract which was partitioned using n-hexane, chloroform ethyl acetate and n-butanol. The extract and the fractions obtained were subjected to phytochemical evaluation sing standard protocols. The antifungal studies of the methanol extract and its fractions against Aspergillus fumugatus, Aspergillus niger, Trychophytom rubrum and Trychophyton mentagrophyte were investigated using agar well diffusion method at different
concentration (100 - 1.25 mg/mL). The phytochemical screening revealed the presence of various secondary metabolites which varies in the extract and fractions. The methanol extract and its fractions showed significant (p< 0.05) antifungal activity against all the fungal isolates with the ethyl acetate fraction having the highest zone of inhibition ranging from 10-39 mm then followed by
the n-butanol fraction with the mean zone of inhibitions from 10-28 mm. The methanol extract and the n-hexane fraction recorded lower zone of inhibition from 9-24 mm and 8-26 mm respectively. The standard drug ketoconazole had zone of inhibition from 6-22 mm. The most sensitive organism was A. niger while the least sensitive organisms were T. mentagraphyte and A. rubrum for the ethyl acetate fraction. The study has validated the ethnomedicinal claim for the use of this plant in treatment of the fungal infections.