Screening of Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Properties of the Syzygium jambos L

Syzygium jambos (L.) Alstone belonging to the Myrtaceae family have been investigated for evaluation of their biological activities namely antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. The n-hexane, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, aqueous soluble fractions of methanolic extract as well as crude methanolic extract of stem barks of Syzygium jambos were evaluated for their free radical scavenging activity. The methanolic extract and aqueous soluble fractions of stem barks of Syzygium jambos exhibited significant antioxidant activity with the IC50 value of 36.36 μg/ml and 44.744μg/ml respectively whereas chloroform, carbon tetrachloride and hexane soluble fraction of stem barks exhibited mild antioxidant activity with the IC50 value 191.018, 257.102, 414.79 μg/ml respectively. The crude extract, along with n-hexane, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform partitionates of the crude extract of Syzygium jambos were screened for their antimicrobial activity against a wide range of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria by the disc diffusion method. The results obtained were compared with that of a standard antibiotic, ciprofloxacin. All the fractions of Syzygium jambos exhibited mild activity against most of the test organism.