Antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of leaves of Terminalia catappa and Anacardium occidentale: A comparative study

Abstract

Medicinal plants serves as an important component of the healthcare system in India. A large number of medicinal plants and their purified constituents have shown beneficial pharmaceutical potentials. The quantity and quality of phytochemicals present in different plants differ from one another. In fact, the biological activity of different plants is related to the difference in distribution of bioactive compounds which are more frequent in some plants than in others. Therefore, the present study is to compare the antibacterial and antioxidant activities of methanolic leaf extract of Terminalia catappa and Anacardium occidentale. The antioxidant activity of methanolic extracts of T. catappa and A. occidentale were determined using DPPH reagent. The methanolic extract of A. occidentale leaf shows the most effective scavengers of DPPH radicals than T. Catappa leaf. The test extracts of T. catappa and A. occidentale were able to inhibit all the bacterial strains studied viz Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Bacillus cereus, Zymomonas mobilis, Serratia marcescens.