Antioxidant and Antibacterial Activities of Ethanol, Methanol Extracts of Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia Ficus Indica) in Laboratory Medium

About 1500 species of cactus are in the genus Opuntia and many of them produce edible and highly favored fruits. Generally cactus constituted valuable foodstuff for human and animal. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the Opuntia antioxidant and antimicrobial activities against gram-positive bacteria. The Opuntia Purple extracts obtained using solvents like ethanol and methanol. Colorimetric aluminum chloride and folin ciocalteu method was used for flavonoid and total phenol content determination, respectively. To determination of the Opuntia extracts scavenging effect were used of the stable 2, 2-diphenyl-picrylhydrazyl radical. The extracts activity was evaluated by well diffusion method against staphylococcus eareus, methicillin- resistant staphylococcus aereus, bacillus subtilis and bacillus cereus, and was measured by the inhibition zone. The total phenol content was 14.79±0.5, 2.28±0.5 mg/g in term of galic acid and the flavonoid content was 214.05±1.8 and 327.6±1.04 mg/g for of the ethanolic and methanolic extracts, respectively. the results showed that, there is in Opuntia antimicrobial activity against food spoiling bacteria used in this study. As of ethanol fraction showed the antimicrobial effect highest on bacillus cereus, mithicillin-resistant staphylococcus aereus and bacillus subtilis and of methanol fraction effect highest on bacillus subtilis and bacillus cereus. In this study, it was found that Opuntia is a high degree of antibacterial activity. This effect may be due to the presence of compounds with effective potential in Opuntia

کلیدواژه ها:

Antioxidant ، Antibacterial activity ، Prickly Pear Cactus ، Opuntia Ficus Indica