Antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of Swietenia macrophylla leaf extracts

The antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of methanol, dichloromethane and n-hexane extracts of S. macrophylla leaves were evaluated. The antimicrobial activity of the extracts was tested against four species of bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and a fungus, Candida albicans. The methanol and the dichloromethane extracts were found to be active against the Grampositive bacteria tested. The methanol extract also showed antifungal properties. The antioxidant activity of S. macrophylla leaf extracts was evaluated using 1,1-diphenyl-2picrylhydrazyl (DPPH . ) radical scavenging assay in which all of the leaf extracts showed remarkable activities. At the concentration of 320 µg/mL, the methanol extract, the dichloromethane extract and the n-hexane extract showed 90.61%, 84.17% and 89.46% scavenging activities respectively. The extracts were found to contain a sizable amount of total phenolic, total tannin and total flavonoid contents.