Antimicrobial activity of banana (Musa paradisiaca L.) peels against food borne pathogenic microbes

Banana (Musa paradisiaca L.) peels are usually considered as wastes and are discarded during the processing, which eventually contribute to polluting the environment. Hence, this study was aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of two different varieties of M. paradisiaca peels, i.e., Nangka (M. paradisiaca variety Nangka)and Tanduk (M. paradisiaca variety Tanduk) with regard to generate safe and cheap antimicrobials as well as address pollution related issues due to such wastes. Antimicrobial study was carried out on the extracts using disc diffusion and broth micro-dilution methods. The best activity through disc diffusion method for bacteria and fungi was demonstrated by Tanduk peel’s ethanol and dichloromethane extracts against S. aureus (30 mm) and C. krusei (10 mm), respectively. However, the least active bacteria and fungi were found to be V. parahaemolyticus and C. albicans, respectively. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values ranged from 6.25 to 100 mg/mL. Tanduk peel’s ethanol extract exhibited the lowest MIC and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) values against B. cepacia (6.25 mg/mL) whereas for fungi, Tanduk peel’s dichloromethane extract exhibited lowest MIC and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) values against C. albicans (25 mg/mL). The results of MBC or MFC showed that some extracts were bactericidal or fungicidal while others were bacteriostatic or fungistatic against certain microbes. Banana peel waste’s extracts could be potential antimicrobial alternatives and may be effective to utilize as a natural source of antimicrobial agent in pharmaceutical industries

DETERMINATION OF CETIRIZINE IN HUMAN PLASMA AND ITS VALIDATION OF METHOD USING HPLC TECHNIQUE

This reseach project is dedicated to analyze cetirizine in human plasma by using HPLC qualitatively and quantitatively, to make a reliable bioanalysis of this drug in human plasma with a goal to utilise it in pharmacokinetics studies. In this research project, cetirizine was extracted from plasma using liquid-liquid extraction by dichloromethane and ethyl acetate. The results in terms of accuracy and precision are compared. For both of the methods, amlodipine was used as the internal standard. Separation was carried out by Phenomenex C18  chromatography column. The mobile phase used here is 35:65, v/v of Acetonitrile to 0.3% triethylamine (TEA) buffer fixed at pH 3 by phosphoric acid, with flow rate of 1mL/min. The column temperature was set at 30 ᵒC. Various wavelength detector (VWD) was used, and detection was set at 237nm. The analysis was linear from 30ng/mL to 500ng/mL. Overall the recovery is more than 90% when using dichloromethane and more than 65% when using ethyl acetate. Keywords: Bioanalysis, Method validation, Cetirizine, Human plasma, HPLC    &nbsp