Antibacterial Activities of the Fractions of Methanolic Extract of Maytenus Senegalensis (Lam) Excell (Celastracea) Stem Barks against Escherichia coli and salmonella typhi

Antibacterial activities of the crude extract and pure compounds isolated from Maytenus senegalensis have been reported in literatures, but none of the reported compounds have been assigned to be responsible for the activity. This work evaluated the fractions of methanolic extracts of Maytenus Senegalensis against Escherichia coli, and salmonella typhi. The stem bark of the plant was extracted by cold maceration using methanol. Column Chromatography was carried out on the crude methanol extract using solvents of varying ratios and178 fractions were obtained. Thin layer Chromatography (TLC) analysis of the resulting fractions led to eight combined fractions that were pooled together based on their TLC profile. Antibacterial assay of the crude extracts and the pooled fractions (F'₁-F'₁₁ was carried out on the test organization using the agar disc diffusion method. The result showed that the test organizations were both susceptible to the crude extracts and the pooled fractions. The crude extract,fraction F'₆, F'₇, F'₈, F'₉, F'₁₀, F'₁₁had 21±1.0,8±2.0, 16±2.0, 18±2.0, 16±0.5, 14±2.0, 11±1.0, diameter of zone of inhibition on S.typhi while that of E. coliwere 19±1.0, 7±2.0, 15±2.0, 17±2.0, 15±0.5, 13±2.0, 10±1.0 respectively. The results show that the fraction eluted withnon-polar solvents are not active on the test organism while polarfractions have good activities. This further confirmed that water will be good extracting agents for the active metabolites of the plants.