The Antibacterial Activity of Leaf Extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis (Myrtaceae)

The antibacterial activity of the leaf extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis was studied against Klebsiella spp, Salmonella typhi, Yersinia enterocolitica, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Gram-negative), Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis by the agar diffusion method. The methanol extract, dichloromethane fraction and methanol residue at 10mg mL-1 displayed broad spectrum activity against all the test organisms but the petroleum ether fraction showed no activity. The antibacterial activity of the extracts was compared to the drug gentamycin. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of the methanol extract and dichloromethane fraction determined by the agar dilution method ranged between 0.04 and 10mg mL-1 with that of Bacillus subtilis being the least. Phytochemical screening of the plant revealed the presence of tannins, saponins and cardiac glycosides. The results of this study support the traditional use of Eucalyptus camaldulensis leaves as an antibacterial agent. Key words: Eucalyptus camaldulensis, antibacterial activity, minimum inhibitory concentration, methanol extract, dichloromethane fractio

In vitro, acidic, non-proteinaceous antifungal activities of lactic acid bacteria isolated from salad vegetables against human pathogenic Candida albicans

Background: The antagonistic abilities of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) against clinical isolates of Candida albicans are not quite widely reported and such are even scarce in Nigeria. This study therefore investigated inhibitory potentials of LAB isolated from locally grown cabbage, cucumber and lettuce against four (4) clinical isolates of C. albicans.Methods: The cell free supernatants (CFS) generated from LAB culture filtrate was evaluated for anti-candida activity using agar well diffusion method, and the CFS-LAB pH was measured and neutralized using standard methods. The proteinaceous inhibitory metabolites were assayed for using sodium dodecylsulphate polyacrilamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) technique. The LAB strains used were previously isolated and identified by 16S rRNA partial sequencing and their data submitted to GenBank for accessioning.Results: The CFS of six (6) LAB strains showed varying degrees of anti-candida activity. Pediococcus pentosaceus BTA 51 from cucumber showed the widest inhibition zone of 14 mm while at neutral pH, it was 12 mm diameter. Weissella confusa BTA 20, BTA 40 isolated from cabbage and lettuce produced 10 mm and 12 mm zones of inhibition at acidic and neutral pH respectively. Lactobacillus plantarum BTA 07 from lettuce showed inhibition zone of 12 mm while L. fermentum BTA 47 and BTA 62 from cucumber showed zones of 14 mm each in acidic pH only. The SDS-PAGE did not detect any proteinaceous substances.Conclusion: In conclusion, LAB isolated from cabbage, cucumber and lettuce produced organic acids, non proteinaceous metabolites at neutral pH, exhibiting invitro inhibitory abilities against clinical isolates of C. albicans.Keywords: In vitro, Lactic acid bacteria, 16S rRNA, antifungal, SDS-PAGE, salad vegetable

The antiviral activity of leaves of Eucalyptus camaldulensis (Dehn) and Eucalyptus torelliana (R. Muell)

Human enteroviruses are the major cause of aseptic meningitis and are resistant to all known antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents. Methanolic extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana were tested on human enteroviruses: Poliovirus type I, Coxsackievirus B and Echovirus 6. The virucidal tests showed that the crude extracts were active on the test viruses: poliovirus type 1, coxsackievirus B and echovirus 6 giving a neutralization index of one log and above. The cytotoxicity assay of the crude extracts to L20B (a genetically engineered mouse cell line) and human rhabdomyo sarcoma (RD) cells showed that the extract of E. torelliana was more toxic than the extract of E. camaldulensis. The antiviral study showed that the extract of E. torelliana was more active than that of E. camaldulensis

Economic Analysis of Cassava Production in Saki-West Local Government Area of Oyo State

This study focused on analyzing the economics of cassava production in Saki–West LGA of Oyo state, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 121 cassava farmers. Descriptive statistics and regression model were employed as analytical techniques. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, to identify the constraints being faced by the cassava farmers and the type of cropping system they practiced. Budgetary and regression analyses were used to determine the profitability of cassava production in the study area. The result of the descriptive analysis of the respondents revealed that their mean age is 50.71 years, 84.3% of the farmers were male while the rest percentages (15.78%) were female, a large percentage (86%) of the cassava farmers were married  and most (68.7%) of the respondents have family size ≤ 10. From the BCR analysis, the benefit cost ratio of 1.7 showed that cassava production was highly profitable in the study area. The result of the regression analysis showed that farm size and Family labour were statistically significant at 1% and had positive influence on farmer’s revenue. This is because the larger the farm size, the longer the hours spent on farming activities by the household and the higher the revenue. However, the age, labour cost, cost of cassava cuttings and years of farming experience were not statistically significant to the farmer’s revenue. Policies that will make more land available to farmers will increase the farmer’s revenue and total output, thus reducing the plague of poverty and unemployment. Keywords: Benefit Cost Ratio, Cassava, Constraints and Profitabilit

The Phytochemical Screening and Antimicrobial Activity of Leaf Extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana (Myrtaceae)

Extracts of leaves of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana were screened phytochemically for the presence of secondary metabolites and for in vitro antibacterial properties. Methanol and dichloromethane extracts of leaves of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana were studied for their antibacterial activity against 8 clinically isolated organisms of gastrointestinal origin viz., Klebsiella species UCH 2101, Proteus mirabilis UCH 2102, Proteus mirabilis UCH 2204, Salmonella typhi UCH 2201, Escherichia coli CHO 3101, Escherichia coli UCH 2103, Pseudomonas aeruginosa CHO 3102 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa UCH 2203. The result of the phytochemical screening showed that both extracts contained tannins, saponins, cardiac glycosides but in addition to these, E. torelliana was found to contain anthraquinones. Both extracts were also found to inhibit all the isolates at 10mg mL-1 concentration. The diameter of zones of inhibition exhibited by the extracts was between 10mm and 22mm. The methanol extracts compared favorably with gentamycin used as a standard control. The minimum inhibitory concentrations determined by the agar dilution method were between 0.04mg mL-1 and 10mg mL-1. The results obtained from this study reveals that extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana possess antibacterial activities against enteric pathogens and the extracts may be a potential source of new antimicrobials against enteric organisms

A review of the implications of Lactic Acid Bacteria and Bifidobacteria in human and animal diseases

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and Bifidobacteria are taxonomically distinct groups of bacteria with proven biotechnological properties such as anti-cancer, immune-stimulating, anti-microbial, maintenance of normal flora balance, probiotics, anti-inflammatory, vaccine carriers, among others. However, studies have implicated some of them, including the ones under the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) qualified presumption of safety in fatal human and veterinary diseases. We performed online database searches of publications on Google, Google Scholar and PubMed using the criteria, “lactic acid bacteria, bifidobacteria as causative agents of human, animal diseases”. Data generated showed LAB across genera and Bifidobacteria either primarily or opportunistically involved in diseases of both immuno-competent and immuno-depressed humans and animals. The members of lactobacilli such as Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus paracasei, Lactobacillus oris, Lactobacillus gasseri and Leuconostoc mesenteroides, were mainly implicated in nosocomial infections, endophthalmitis, neonatal meningitis, and bacteraemia while Lactobacillus delbrueckii and Bifidobacteria, specifically, Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium breve, and Bifidobacterium animalis were implicated in urinary tract infections (UTIs), necrotizing pancreatitis, fatal pulmonary infections, sepsis, and epidural abscess. The animal diseases, neonatal sepsis in foal, was caused by Weissella confusa while the fish pathogen, Lactococcus garvieae caused various zoonotic cases such as acute acalculous cholecystitis in human. In conclusion, this review showed the up-to-date reports on LAB and Bifidobacteria implicated in serious humans and animal diseases

Semantics-based clustering approach for similar research area detection

The manual process of searching out individuals in an already existing research field is cumbersome and time-consuming. Prominent and rookie researchers alike are predisposed to seek existing research publications in a research field of interest before coming up with a thesis. From extant literature, automated similar research area detection systems have been developed to solve this problem. However, most of them use keyword-matching techniques, which do not sufficiently capture the implicit semantics of keywords thereby leaving out some research articles. In this study, we propose the use of ontology-based pre-processing, Latent Semantic Indexing and K-Means Clustering to develop a prototype similar research area detection system, that can be used to determine similar research domain publications. Our proposed system solves the challenge of high dimensionality and data sparsity faced by the traditional document clustering technique. Our system is evaluated with randomly selected publications from faculties in Nigerian universities and results show that the integration of ontologies in preprocessing provides more accurate clustering results

IN-VITRO ANTIMICROBIAL PROPERTIES OF ASPILLA AFRICANA (COMPOSITAE).

The in vitro anti-microbial activity of the petroleum ether, chloroform and methanol extracts of Aspilia africana (Compositae) was studied. The bacterial used for the antimicrobial analysis consisted of 3 clinical strains of Staphylococcus aureus , Bacillus subtilis , 2 clinical strains of Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Candida albicans and Aspergillus flavus . The petroleum ether extract was most active with a very good broad spectrum activity against all tested microorganisms. This was followed by the chloroform extract and then methanol. The cold extracts were generally more active than the soxhlet extracts. Only the cold petroleum ether extract showed a good activity against both C. albicans and A. flavus. The phytochemical screening for the whole plat of A. africana revealed the presence of alkaloids, saponin glycosides and tannins but absence of steroidal nucleus and anthraquinone

The Phytochemical Screening and Antimicrobial Activity of Leaf Extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana (Myrtaceae)

Extracts of leaves of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana were screened phytochemically for the presence of secondary metabolites and for in vitro antibacterial properties. Methanol and dichloromethane extracts of leaves of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana were studied for their antibacterial activity against 8 clinically isolated organisms of gastrointestinal origin viz., Klebsiella species UCH 2101, Proteus mirabilis UCH 2102, Proteus mirabilis UCH 2204, Salmonella typhi UCH 2201, Escherichia coli CHO 3101, Escherichia coli UCH 2103, Pseudomonas aeruginosa CHO 3102 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa UCH 2203. The result of the phytochemical screening showed that both extracts contained tannins, saponins, cardiac glycosides but in addition to these, E. torelliana was found to contain anthraquinones. Both extracts were also found to inhibit all the isolates at 10mg mL-1 concentration. The diameter of zones of inhibition exhibited by the extracts was between 10mm and 22mm. The methanol extracts compared favorably with gentamycin used as a standard control. The minimum inhibitory concentrations determined by the agar dilution method were between 0.04mg mL-1 and 10mg mL-1. The results obtained from this study reveals that extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus torelliana possess antibacterial activities against enteric pathogens and the extracts may be a potential source of new antimicrobials against enteric organisms

ANTI-HELICOBACTER PYLORI EFFECTS OF THE METHANOL EXTRACTS OF ALLIUM ASCALONICUM (LINN.) (LILIACEAE) BULB.

Allium ascalonicum bulb of the family Liliaceae is an annual herbaceous plant of smaller size than Allium cepa . The bulb is of considerable importance in African cooking and in salads . Various species have been reported to have anti-diabetic, hypocholesterolaemic, fibrinolytic, anti-ulcer and diuretic potentials. Crude methanol extracts of Allium ascalonicum bulb was screened against three strains of Helicobacter pylori (UCH 97001, UCH 98026 and UCH 97009) for antibacterial activity by the agar diffusion method on Muller-Hinton agar supplemented with defibrinated horse blood and grown in a microaerophilic incubator. All the strains were inhibited by the extract. Further investigation on the effect of the extracts on the urease activity of the Helicobacter pylori strains showed that urease activity of all the strains decreased with increase in the concentration of the extracts. Phytochemical screening of the plant revealed the presence of alkaloids, saponins, cardiac glycosides and essential oils while tannins were not detected. Allium ascalonicum bulb has some therapeutic potential against Helicobacter pylori, which may be explored by pharmaceutical companies and patients with gastroduodenal disorders