Gini George

Salvinia molesta, commonly known as giant Salvinia, is a floating fern belonging to the family of Salviniaceae. In this study the active fractions of the fern extract were separated using column chromatography and phenolic compounds present in the active fractions were determined by RP-HPLC. Ethyl acetate extract was found to possess significant pharmacological activity when compared to other extracts under study and therefore an attempt was made to fractionate ethyl acetate extract. The analysis was performed through two different mobile phases involving solvent A (acetonitrile) and solvent B (0.1% phosphoric acid in water) and solvent A (methanol) and Solvent B (4% acetic acid). HPLC analysis indicated the presence of phenolic compounds namely ascorbic acid, quercetin, gallic acid, resorcinol, cate-chol, vanillin and benzoic acid with specific retention times. The detected compounds possess antioxidant and antitumour activities. The results of the present study suggests the possibility to use S. molesta as a source for a plausible antioxidant agent which could be isolated and used as a lead candidate for the development of antioxidant drugs that help stop or limit damage caused by free radicals and to counteract oxidative stress leading to the prevention of a variety of chronic and degenerative diseases.

The present study was undertaken to investigate the heavy metal decontaminating activity of Salvinia molesta from municipal waste water. The waste water was treated with the plant specimen for five and ten days consecutively after which it was analyzed for the estimation of cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). The waste water was also analyzed before the treatment. The results of the investigation showed that the non-treated samples indicated higher content of Fe followed by Zn in sample Nitta gelatin (NG). It was found that Cu and Ni were present in similar quantities in all samples. A favorable decrease was seen in Zn in all samples and Fe in sample NG after five days of treatment. The concentration of Cu and Fe were found to be below the detection limit in samples collected from Chalakudy (CH), Ernakulam (ER) and Kokkala (KK) after ten days of treatment. Ni was found to be below the detection limit in samples ER and KK. Zn was found to be at a reduced level in samples CH, ER, KK and NG. Cd and Pb were found to be below the detection limit (0.01 and 0.05 ppm) in all four samples before treatment, after five and ten days of treatment. The present findings revealed that S. molesta was efficient in reducing the heavy metal concentration in the waste water, suggesting being a bioaccumulator of these metals.

The medicinal value of the ferns have been known to man for more than 2000 years, they have been found with very little application in modern pharmaceutical industry as compared to the angiosperms. The present study was aimed to compare the phytochemicals present in the secondary and tertiary growth form of Salvinia molesta (S. molesta) in order to find out its use and application in the modern drug industry as a therapeutic agent and development of a better solvent system for thin layer chromatography (TLC) of hexane, ethyl acetate, ethanol and methanol extracts of Salvinia molesta. The hexane, ethyl acetate, ethanol and methanol crude extracts of S. molesta were screened for phytochemicals using standard established method for qualitative analysis. The various phytochemical tests showed the presence of tannins, saponins, flavonoids, phenols, phytosterols, steroids, terpenoids, triterpenoids, alkaloids, tropane alkaloids, isoquinoline alkaloids, carbohydrates, reducing sugars, fixed oils and fats, lipids, and acids both in the secondary and tertiary form of S. molesta in varying concentrations. Carotenoids, anthraquinones, cardiac glycosides, glycosides, phlobatannins quinones, coumarins, coumarin glycosides, resins, condensed tannins, pseudo tannins, proteins and free amino acids were found to be absent both in the secondary and tertiary form of S.  molesta. The comparative thin layer chromatographic profiles of secondary and tertiary growth form revealed the chemical pattern of various compounds with different Rf values. The yield of the crude extracts was found to be higher in tertiary form as compared to secondary form. The powdered drugs were examined for organoleptic and physical parameters.

Objectives: The purpose of the present research was to explore the antibacterial and antifungal activity of hexane, ethyl acetate, ethanol and methanol extracts of Marsilea quadrifolia against 31 species of bacteria and 7 species of fungi. Methods: Antibacterial activity was assessed by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. The concentrations of plant extracts were 1.25, 2.5 and 5 mg /disc. Streptomycin (10µg/disc) was used as standard antibiotic. The antifungal activity was assayed by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) by broth micro dilution method. The extracts were made in the concentration range of 0.010 to 0.0001 g/ml. Fluconazole was used as standard reference. Results: Antibacterial assay revealed that the ethyl acetate extract (5 mg/disc) was effective against most of the bacterial strains, while the hexane, ethanol and methanol extracts were weakly effective. The diameter of inhibition zones was found to be ranged between 6 - 13 mm.  Antifungal activity test showed that hexane extract (0.002 g/ml) was effective against Aspergillus flavus and Candida albicans. Ethyl acetate extract (0.002 g/ml) was effective against Aspergillus flavus and Trychophyton rubrum. Ethanol extract (0.005 g/ml and 0.002 g/ml) was effective against Trychophyton mentagrophytes and Aspergillus flavus respectively. Methanol extract was not effective against any of the fungal strains. The MIC ranged between 0.002 - 0.005 g/ml. Conclusions: The results indicated that Marsilea quadrifolia extracts has antimicrobial activity and could be source of alternative antimicrobial drugs for treatment of diseases caused by the pathogens tested in this study.

The present study investigated the anticancer properties of an aquatic weed Salvinia molesta using Dalton’s Lymphoma Ascites cell line maintained in Swiss albino mice.The main objectives of the study was to screen fractions for antiproliferative activity by trypan blue dye exclusion and dual staining methods and also to study the molecular mechanism involving in it using RT-QPCR.The study showed that the all the five fractions and ethyl acetate were capable of inducing apoptosis from 2 h onwards in drug treated tumor cells in concenrtations 250 μg/ml, 500 μg/ml and 1000 μg/ml in a dose dependent manner.The results substantiated that the phytocomponents present in this plant could become one of the lead compounds for synthesizing novel anticancer drugs.