Antimicrobial Activity, Phytochemical Screening and Nutrient Analysis of Tetrapleura tetraptera and Piper guineense

The study was carried out to examine the antibacterial, antifungal activity, and minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of the petroleum ether, aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Tetrapleura tetraptera and Piper guineense in additional to their phytochemical screening and proximate composition analyses. All analyses were done using standard techniques. The bacteria isolates used were Esherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa while the fungi were Aspergillus, Mucor and Rhizopus species. The highest inhibition of 37.50 mm was seen using aqueous extract of P. guineense on E. coli. Consistently, the ethanolic and petroleum ether of P. guineense was not inhibitory to P. aeruginosa and S. aureus. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the P. guineense leaves and T. tetraptera fruits were 80 mg/ml for both plants. However, the seeds had a higher MIC of 200 mg/ml. The highest sensitivity was shown by E. coli while the least by P. aeruginosa. None of the extracts showed complete inhibitory activity against all the fungal isolates. The proximate composition of the studied plant parts shows that the leaves of P. guineense had the highest amount of moisture (85.15±0.01). T. tetraptera had the highest amount of fibre (11.38±0.02) while the seeds of P. guineense had the highest amount of protein (11.42±0.03). Phytochemical screening showed the presence of polyphenol, cardiac glycosides, alkaloids, reducing compounds and flavonoids in all the samples with polyphenol being the most abundant in all the samples. Given the antimicrobial potential of these spices, there is a need for more studies aimed at evaluating the bioactive components in these plants.