Bioactivity and Biochemical Profiling of Paganum harmala and Cichorium intybus under stress conditions

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the potential of antimicrobial activities of Paganum harmala and Cichorium intybus and biochemical profile under stress conditions. Seedling of Paganum harmala and Cichorium intybus were induced with fungus Aspergillus niger. The plant material was harvested at different dpi (day post inoculation) and extracted in 10 mM sodium phosphate buffer (pH: 7.2). Protein content of all the harvested samples were determined by Bradford method and was found higher at dpi 3 and dpi 4. The different biochemical profile were also documented like peroxidase (POD), α-amylase, proteases and catalases. The selected extract was partially purified by gel filtration chromatography on sephadex G-200. Most of the extracts exhibited maximum antimicrobial activity against Fusarium solani, Aspergillus niger, Tricohderma harzianum, Helmenthosporium myedis and selected bacterial strain, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pasteurella multocida and Bacillus subtilis. Gel filtration and ion exchange fractions were tested for antimicrobial activity and fraction with higher antimicrobial activity was subjected to SDS-PAGE. Significant results were observed for choloform extract with inhibition zone (26±0.6) mm of Cichorium intybus and n-butanol extract with zone of inhibition (22±0.04)mm of Paganum harmala respectively. On the basis of these phyotochemical screening, it is concluded that these medicinal plants were rich source of different biological active phytoconstituents. It was found conspicuous antimicrobial activity of different organic extracts. It was also depicted from the current study that the plant extracts also exhibited the antioxidant activity conducted on the pBR322 DNA induced by UV and H2O2. In addition, essential oil of these plants were extracted using super critical fluid extraction (SCFE) system. GC-MS analysis of essential oil of P. harmala and Cichorium intybus revealed 33 and 34 compounds respectively. These essential oils also showed highly significant antimicrobial activities against the selected microbial species. The current research study explored the selected medicinal plant in a very comprehensive fashion and presented their different medicinal and biological aspects. In future these results may be used for industrial scale extraction and isolation of different bioactive lead compounds using state of art techniques, which will find place in herbal industry and also be usable as natural biopreservative.