Phytochemical, Anti-microbial and Chromatographic Studies of Root Bark Extracts of Acacia ataxacantha

The paper is a report of an experimental work designed to carry out the phytochemical, antimicrobial and chromatographic studies on the polar extracts of the root bark of Acacia ataxacantha. The plant materials were extracted with n-hexane and thereafter successively extracted with ethyl acetate, methanol and water in that order. Phytochemical screening of the extracts revealed the presence of saponins, tannins, flavonoids steroids and anthraquinones, thin layer chromatography of the crude extracts gave two distinct spots for each of the extracts. Rf values obtained for methanol extract stood at Mf1(0.340) and Mf2(0.520) and those got for water extract remained as Wf1 (0.300) and Wf2 (0.625). Column chromatographic separation of the crude extracts resulted in 12 fractions for methanol extracts while 13 fractions were eluted from the water extracts. These were pooled into two fractions for methanol extract as ME1 and ME2 and water extract fractions as WE1 and WE2. Crude extracts as well as the purified fractions were tested on eight bacteria namely, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus spp, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus mirabilis and Salmonella typhi, and three fungi which included Candida albicans, Mucur species and Aspergillus fumigatus. Both methanol (ME1 and ME2) and water fractions (WE1 and WE2) exhibited both antimicrobial and antifungal potencies against all the microorganisms.