Vol. 8, Issue 1 (2019)

Author(s):
Priti and Sulekha Rani

Abstract:
Tinospora cordifolia (Menispermaceae) is a divine herb due to its therapeutic efficacy. The main objective of the present study was to make a comparative evaluation of leaf and stem tissues of this medicinal plant for the presence of phytoconsituents and antibacterial &antioxidant activities. Different solvents (methanol, ethyl acetate, diethyl ether, aqueous and chloroform) extracts were analyzed for presence of phytochemicals and studied further for antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. The antibacterial and antioxidant activity was evaluated by Agar well diffusion & DPPH scavenging method.Methanol proved to be best solvent when equated with other solvents (ethyl acetate, diethyl ether, chloroform and water) due to better solubility of metabolites in it. The stem tissue extracts showed the presence of more phytoconstituents and better antibacterial & antioxidant activities as compared to leaves. For the antibacterial activity, among the different solvent extract, the chloroform extract of stem tissue showed complete inhibition of all tested bacterial strains with maximum zone of inhibition. For antioxidant activity, the TAA % value of leaf tissue in methanol, ethyl acetate, chloroform, diethyl ether and aqueous extracts was 44%, 32%, 26%, 25%, and 14% and respectively of stem tissue was 70.70%, 67.00%, 62.00%, 59.10% and 69.70%. The Ascorbic acid was used as control. The TAA % value of ascorbic acid was 72%. The DPPH scavenging method showed that the antioxidant activity of stem extract in all solvents was superior as compared to leaf extract. This investigation reveals that the stem part of T. cordifolia contains higher quantity of phytochemicals, due to which it showed better antibacterial and antioxidant activity than leaf tissue and thus has higher prospective applications in food, agriculture and pharmaceutical industry.