Detection of Biological Activity of Curcuma longa Methanol Extract and Its Antibacterial effect on Staphylococcus aureus

Plants are known to possess enormous profound benefits, which if well incorporated in daily living have the potential to influence our health in ways unexpected. However, it is worthy of note that certain plant components are known to be comprised of esters, inorganic and organic components, in some cases hydrocarbons which play a role in increasing the vitality of the human system. Certain plants are known to possess increased antioxidant activity, antimicrobial activity, carminative effects, repair of dead cells, ability to boost cardiovascular stability.

Fiber is of great importance in metabolic activity of our digestive system, and our overall health by improving blood cholesterol, abating lung and colon cancer and the prevention of diseases like diabetes. Over time, fibers have been obtained from husks of corn, stalks of cotton, straws of wheat, barley and rice and peels of plantain or banana, citrus husks amongst others (1). Curcuma longa is a resourceful member of the Zingiberaceae family. Turmeric identified botanically as C. longa is often cultivated for the importance of its rhizomes, however, the plant produces a substantial amount of leaves and stem from which oil and other extractives are derived (2).

Turmeric is mostly consumed as a yellow powdered spice with an aesthetic flavor and medicinal prowess capable of preserving the freshness of the product prepared. In traditional medicinal practices, turmeric has been used in its various forms to combat one or more health conditions ranging from stomach aches, to use as a blood purifier to the treatment of skill anomaly. However, the predominant application of turmeric is observed and described as antimicrobial, anticancer, antitumor, wound healing, venom antidotes and also hepatic-protective (3).

Only recently analyzed anti-oxidative potential in food products become a thing of worldwide acceptance and interest. Significant progress has been made in relation to anti-oxidative and anti-cancerous effect of bioactive components in food products, worthy of note in the curcuminoids derived from turmeric rhizomes (4).

Worthy of note is the attribute of turmeric which makes it a dye for artistic representation, for textile products, for use in drugs against cancer, dermatitis, AIDS. With regards to the significance which bioactive constituents in herba naturale wield, there is an ever-growing discontent with better extraction methods and detailed means of phenotyping these components. To this effect, various spectrometric methods have sufficed including the HPLC-MS, GC-MS amongst others (5).

The composition and volatility of Curcuma longa extracts is the basis of the characteristic smell moreover, fixed phenolic compounds like curcumin are a requisite for their intense yellow color (6). A wide input of clinical studies on standardized curcumin has described beneficial pharmacological effects and plausible functional food ingredient or therapeutic agent (7).

The rhizome is about 2-10 cm in length, cylindrical, ovoid, branched and deep in orange color. A recent report on methanol extract of a species of turmeric shown a significantly strong antifungal activity besides its known anti-bacterial activity (8). In general, essential oils from Curcuma spp. are complex mixtures of sesquiterpenes, monoterpenes and aromatic compounds, which have been shown strong antioxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial activities. Germacrone can also inhibit the proliferation of MCF-7 by inducing cell cycle arrest and triggering apoptosis (9).

Organic extracts of turmeric prevent curtailed DNA sabotage. The anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects of this natural rhizome according to several studies appear to inhibit cancer induced by the cell cycle. Besides tumerone, curcumin is also an active agent in turmeric for in treating several types of cancer examples include breast cancer and lung cancer, by promoting cancer cell death, through curtailed immune responses in form of inflammation, and slowing down tumor growth. It also contains (Superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1)), which has proven potential to prevent cancerous cell development in the prostate as well as to inhibit secondary melanoma, the tumor of the brain, amongst others (10). One of the bottlenecks in the application of turmeric as a therapeutic agent is that it can be easily metabolized or broken down within the body which could result in double bonds in the reduction of di-bonds in heptadienedione chain. A secondary outcome of this will be the production of the active metabolite (1).

Many researchers have pointed out the ability of turmeric to exhibit anticancer activity with a dual-phase pattern which affects the proteasome, such that at decreased doses of application there will be higher inhibitory effects. As is rightly known, inhibition of proteasome has the potential to induce cell death however, its stimulation could also provoke cell stimulation for survival even though this is largely dependent on the application dosage. Cumulatively, various application doses of the turmeric extract could result in alternative cell death options, this is to say that low application doses might affect the pattern of apoptosis and oxidative stress, while the higher application doses might lead to reduced availability of ROS species (12).

Therefore, to this end, this research aims to describe succinctly the phytochemical components, antioxidant activity and antimicrobial activity of turmeric (Curcuma longa) methanol extract.

Many researchers who tested different plant extracts against bacteria and yeast observed their antimicrobial activities. Plant extracts contain lots of active chemical compounds which show potential antimicrobial activities. Plants whose have especially rhizomes contain lots of active substances in terms of antimicrobial and anticancer activities. Curcuma longa is one of these plants who has economic and industrially-important substances inside.

It was gathered by the observation that the qualitative extraction of C. longa using methanol shows the presence of varying chemical components such as AR-tumerone, arachinsaeure, alpha-tumerone amongst others (Table 1). Arachnsaeure finds its relevance in ointment formulation of face, body, and hand skincare products, moisturizers, anti-aging formulations, and other skincare products. Research data suggest that ar-turmerone has the potential to promote the positive and negative proliferation of tumor cell lines. However, ar-turmerone inhibited the proliferation of certain cancer cell lines, it enhanced the proliferation of a special type cell; peripheral blood mononuclear cells (14). Alternative research was conducted, showed that when the alpha tumerones and aromatic tumerones were used in the same amounts, a significantly higher amount of curcumin was detected inside the cells. The results also describe that changes in transport of curcumin are largely depended on the tumerones (15). Results showed that alpha tumerones mainly contributed to the changes in curcumin transport across and into the Caco-2 cells. Actually, in the presence of alpha, the measured curcumin amounts inside the cells and on the basolateral side of the monolayer were significantly increased which is one of the compounds responsible for antimicrobial activity according to (6). In addition, the solvent of extraction plays a role in adequate phenotyping and phytochemical examination in the GC-MS. Czernicka et al. (16) detected different substances in C. longa according to ours by LC-MS analysis as a result of methanol and diethyl ether extract. Kukula-Koch et al. (17) obtained many substances from C. longa with special solvent composed of heptane: chloroform: methanol: water mixture. Some of these items were similar to those in our study, while others differed. These researches show that lots of solvents can be used for extraction and different substance can be obtained if different analysis method and solvent are used. This situation might be as a result of the solvent of extraction which might interfere and alter the resultant constituents within the solvent (18).

This bottleneck is the rationale behind the focus of scientist on alternative orthodox or traditional means of sorting out human health problems by diet. Biomolecules have the ability.

Ascorbic acid was weighed and dissolved in both methanol. These methods were carried out to evaluate the antioxidant potential of C. longa methanol extracts and the interactions with free radicals. In vitro antioxidant assays have the potential to give a certain level of information that could contribute and give insight as to what happens in in vivo assay. Ascorbic acid has very high standard antioxidant activity, the percentage of DPPH scavenging activity appeared to increase as concentration increased for both the standard and the C. longa methanol extracts (Figure 1). The absorbance appeared to be unstable at some concentrations and it was in opposition with what Zhang et al. (9) reported in similar research. Compared to the IC50 values of Ascorbic acid which was 5 mg/ml, C. longa methanol extract had a lower IC50 value is 3.2 mg/ml which according to previous literature is a good one given that lower IC50 values indicate great antioxidant activity (Table 2).

The zones of inhibition were measured after plating on a Mueller-Hinton agar plate and compared to the standards penicillin G and chloramphenicol. The methanol extract of C. longa has antimicrobial effect against S. aureus known as infectious disease agent as well as tested antibiotics (Table 4). The literature explains that a wider zone of inhibition describes the increased antimicrobial activity of certain agents over others. The research reported by Akter et al. (8) showed that C. longa methanol extract was effective on S. aureus and it could be as a result of a larger surface area on smaller sized turmeric components which makes it easier to access the interior cell wall compartment of these microbes. Differences in the susceptibility of S. aureus might be due to the variances in the cell wall structure, physiology and metabolism (4). Jalaluddin et al. (19) found that C. longa extract was effective on some periodontal pathogens; Porphyromonas gingivalis, Prevotella intermedia and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. This indicates that there is at least one substance in C. longa that has antimicrobial effects on many bacterial species. In our study, the dominant inhibition of C. longa extract on a species that is resistant to Methicillin proves that the turmeric plant has a high antimicrobial effect.

Curcumin has shown potent antioxidant, anticancer, antibacterial, antifungal activity and other pharmacological actions since 1950. Nowadays, Curcumin has been sold globally as a food and health supplement mainly for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. However, the GC-MS typing did not identify this curcumin, moreover research suggests that active agent for antimicrobial activity is curcumin. This indicates that different components other than curcumin, which are contained in C. longa, have an antimicrobial effect. C. longa methanol extract had a lower IC50 value with 3.2 mg/ml which according to previous literature is a good one given that lower IC50 values indicate great antioxidant activity. This result showed that C. longa methanol extract was effective on Methicillin-resistant S. aureus and it could be a potential antimicrobial agent with its contents against S. aureus

It has high potential to be developed into an antibiotic against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and other clinically important bacterial strains in future. However, in order to develop biologically more active curcumin and other substance derivatives available in C. longa, it is necessary to increase the number of studies and to test its effectiveness in situ and in vitro conditions by switching to the production of new generation synthetic products.