Abstract:

Background: Medicinal plants have important contribution throughout the world in health matters. Most of the drugs used today contain various plants active ingredients. The synthetic drugs used today are not good due to their side effects. There is a need to carry out a comprehensive study on medicinal plants. Objective: The purpose of our study was to find out the antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of Ricinus communis L. fruit. Methodology: R. communis L fruit were collected from different regions of district Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during flowing season. The plant material was identified at the Department of Botany University of Science and Technology Bannu. Agar Tube Dilution method was used to determine the antimicrobial activity and DPPH assay for antioxidant potential determination of different extracts. Results: In the antioxidant activity, the dichloromethane, hexane, and methanolic fractions of Ricinus communis L. fruit exhibited good activity as compared to ascorbic acid while the remaining fractions showed weak activities. The methanolic and dichloromethanr fractions showed strong activity against the various bacterial strains. The dichloromethane and hexane fractions showed strong antifungal activity against the various fungal strains. Conclusion: Our study concluded that R. communis fruit has strong potential against bacteria and fungi. It also showed good antioxidant activity. Our study suggested designing a study for further investigation of active compounds in this plant.

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