المستخلص: |
Calotropis procera (Family Asclepiadeae) is implicated in a variety of ethno-medicinal therapies ranging from oral, skin, gastro-intestinal to respiratory problem. The effect of this plant on the sensitivity of micro-organism need verification and its potential for cytotoxicity needs to be investigated. Thus, the anti-microbial and the brine-shrimp lethality studies on the stem and latex were carried out. The crude ethanolic extract of the latex and its ethyl acetate fraction elicited good antibacterial activity against clinical strains of Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus but gave minimal activity against Escherichia coli, and Salmonella typhi but none against the fungal isolate; Candida albican. The brine-shrimp lethality assay analyzed using the Finney probit method showed that the crude ethanolic extracts of the stem and latex displayed LC50 values at 192ppm and 182ppm respectively. These findings indicate the potential of the plant as panacea for infectious diseases and also reveal a novel potential in the fight against tumors in man.
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