Full Length Research Paper

Lack of antimicrobial activities of Dicranopteris linearis extracts and fractions

Z. A. Zakaria1*, A. Mat Desa2, K. Ramasamy2, N. Ahmat3, A. S. Mohamad1, 

D. A. Israf1 and M. R. Sulaiman1

¹Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

²Faculty of Pharmacy, University Technology MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

³Faculty of Applied Sciences, University Technology MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: dr_zaz@yahoo.com.

Accepted 3 December, 2009

   Abstract

The aim of the present study is to determine the antimicrobial activity of the aqueous, chloroform and methanol extracts of the leaves of Dicranopteris linearis (Gleicheniaceae) using the micro-broth dilution method. The leaves of D. linearis were soaked separately in distilled water (dH₂O), chloroform and methanol in the ratio of 1:20 (w/v) for 72 h at room temperature, while some part of the methanol extracts was also partitioned with hexane, chloroform and methanol. The target microbe used were Staphylococcus aureus 25923, S. aureus 33591 (a methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) isolate), S. aureus 700699 (a vancomycin-intermediate resistant S. aureus (VISA) isolate), S. aureus 156 (a vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA) isolate), Escherichia coli 35218 and Candida albicans 10231. The results obtained show that the methanol extract was the most active in antimicrobial testing with the MIC/MBC values of 625 µg/ml. Based on this result, fractionation was carried out on the methanol extract and yielded eleven fractions. Of these, only B5, B6 and B11 fractions were found to be effective against S. aureus 33591 and S. aureus 25927 with MIC/MBC values ranging between 1250 - 2500 µg/ml. In conclusion, the D. linearis possess mild antibacterial activity against the selected panel of microbes, which explained the lack of claimed on the plant antimicrobial activity.

Key word: Dicranopteris linearis, Gleicheniaceae, micro-broth dilution method, mild antibacterial, Stapylococcus aureus.