Casearia Tomentosa: A Potential Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Source

The present work is an effort to discover anti-microbial and antioxidant potential of bark and leaf extracts of Casearia tomentosa Roxb. The extracts provide excellent to satisfactory antimicrobial results with maximum antibacterial potential 37 +/- 3.03 mm exhibited by methanolic leaf extract against E. coli by agar-well diffusion assay and 0.013 +/- 0.05 (at 0.9 mg/L) in opposition to B. subtilis by broth-dilution (MIC) analysis. Methanolic leaf extract also produces significant antifungal result against F. solani with value of 34.5 +/- 4.59 mm and against A. oryzae with MIC value of 0.010 +/- 0.001 (at 0.9 mg/L). Various extracts showed significant DPPH activity with bark petroleum-ether extract displaying 92.5 +/- 0.03% radical scavenging potential and chloroform extract of leaf exposing IC50: 10.77 +/- 1.02 mu g/mL. The antioxidant potential of the plant is further verified by employing TAA (maximum at 1.131 +/- 0.10 by bark methanolic extract), FRAP (highest at 296 +/- 0.23 by chloroform bark extraction) and TPC (peak at 86.16 +/- 0.08 GAE mg/mL of chloroform bark extract).