Bioactive Properties of The Toothbrush Plant, Glycosmis Pentaphylla (Retz.) with Special Reference to Stored Product Pests

Abstract

In the antimicrobial activity test both the antibacterial and antifungal tests offered promising outputs and the results were supported by the results ach'ieved by the previous workers (Rahmani et al., 2004; Greger, 1993) dealt with this plant. In the disc diffusion method the leaf extract gave the inhibition zones 17-, 16-, 16-, 14-, 16-, 20-, 12- and 7 mm for B. megaterium, B. subtilis, S. lutea, S. - {3-haemolyticus, S. typhi, S. sonnei, S. boydii and P. aeruginosa respectively, while in comparison the inhibition zones for the standard were 28-, 33- 30-, 31-, 35-, 33-, 34- and 31 mm respectively. For the stem bark extract the inhibition zones were 14-, 15-, 15-, 11-, 15- , 10- and 10 mm for S. aureus, B. megaterium, S. lutea, S. typhi, S. sonnei, S. boydii and P. aeruginosa respectively, while the same for the standard were 31"'., 28-, 30-, 35-, 33-, 34-, and 31 mm for the same test agents respectively. For the stem wood extract the inhibition zones were 7-, 14-, 12-, 10- and 12 mm respectively for B. megaterium, B. subtilis, S.- {3-haemolyticus, S. boydii and P. aeruginosa, while the inhibition zones for the standard were 28-, 33-, 31-, 34- and 31 mm; and for the root extract the inhibition zones were 9-, 9-, 10-, 8- and 7 mm for S. aureu, B. megaterium, S. sonnei, S. boydii and P. aeruginosa respectively, while the inhibition zones for the standard were 31-, 28, 33-, 34- and 31 mm for the above mentioned test agents respectively. Many previous works support this output. Arborinine, and acridone alkaloid obtained from G. pentaphylla, exhibited significant inhibition of crown gall tumors produced by Agrobacterium tumefaciens in a potato disc bioassay (Quader, et al., 1999). In the antifungal activity tests the leaf extract (chloroform) of G. pentaphyl/a offered promising activity, while the inhibition zones were 20 mm for A. fumigatus and Mucor sp. after 24 h of exposure, however both of them remained responsive after 48 h with 12 mm of the inhibition zones; while the inhibition zones for the standard were 32- and 30 mm for the above mentioned test fungi respectively. For the stem bark extract the inhibition zones 19-, 7-, 17- and 12 mm for A. fumigatus, A. flavus, Mucorsp. and C. afbicans after 24 h of exposure, however after 48 h only the A. fumigatus, Mucor sp. and C. albicans remained responsive to the same with 12-, 13- and 9 mm of inhibition zones; while the inhibition zones for the standard were 32, 28-, 30-and 31 mm for the above mentioned test fungi. The stem wood extract offered inhibition zones 7-, 12-, 10-, 17- and 10 mm after 24 h of exposure against F. vasinfectum,.,A, fumigatus, A. flavus, Mucor sp. and C. albicans, among them only the Mucor sp. remained responsive to the same with 13 mm of the inhibition zone after 48 h of exposure; while the inhibition zones for the standard were 29-, 32-, 28-, 30- and 31 mm for the above mentioned test fungi. For the root extract the inhibition zones were 7-, 15- and 12 mm for F. vasinfectum, A. fumigatus and Mucor sp. after 24 h of exposure, however after 48 h the A. fumigatus and Mucor sp. remained responsive to the same with 9 mm of the inhibition zones; while the inhibition zones for the standard were 29-, 32-, 31- and 30 mm for the above mentioned test fungi respectively. The crude extracts showed cytotoxic activity while tested on the brine shrimp nauplii, A. salina. The LC5o values established were 28.579-, 28.659-, 57.213- and 84.111 ppm for leaf, stem bark, stem wood and root (root bark and root wood were not separated) extracts respectively; while the efficacy could be arranged in a descending order Leaf>stem bark> stem wood> root. Findings of Muthukrishnan and his group (Muthukrishnan et al., 1999) resembles with this result, while the addition of 10±4 to 10±5 M the quinazolone of arborine isolated from the ethyl acetate fraction of G. pentaphylla leaf extract to water resulted in 83 to 100% mortality of C. quinquefasciatus larvae.--------