In vitro antibacterial activity of an extract, fractions and terpenols from Lantana camara Linn leaves against selected oral pathogens.

Abstract

Ethnomedicinally, the leaves of Lantana camara (family: Verbenaceae) has a lot of applications, some of which includes in the treatment of bacterial infections. Successive and exhaustive partitioning of the crude methanol extract of the leaves (L) gave rise to the chloroform (Lc) and ethyl acetate (Le) fractions which both revealed the presence of terpenes and steroidal nucleus. Fractionation and purification of the ethyl acetate fractions (Le) led to the isolation of two long chain terpenols which were structurally elucidates 3, 7, 11, 15-tetramethyl-12-hexadecene-1-ol (2-phyten-1-ol) and 3, 7, 11, 15-Tetramethylhecadeca-2,6,10,14-tetraen-1-ol (geranylgeraniol) using physical, chemical and spectra properties in comparison with literature data. Antibacterial assay of the crude extract, L (2500-10,000) ug/cm3, its two fractions, Lc and Le (2500-10,000) ug/cm3) each and the two isolated compounds (100 ug/cm3) in comparison with amoxicillin and ampiclox (100 ug/cm3) against selected Gram-positive and Gram-negative oral pathogens revealed that L and Lc exhibited no inhibitory activity; Le displayed a broad spectrum activity, while, the isolated compounds inhibited growth of only Gram positive pathogens. The results obtained from this study have provided some evidence for the ethnomedicinally use of the Lantana camara leaves as an antibacterial agent.