Screening of antibacterial activity and phytochemical properties of Aloe vera L. ‘lily of the desert’

This study was to investigate the preliminary phytochemical and antimicrobial screening of different extracts of Aloe vera L. ‘Lily of The Desert’. The phytochemical screening of the extracts of leaves of A. vera revealed that the presence of bioactive compounds such as alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, tannins, etc. with the absence of cyanogenic glycosides. Five different solvents on the basis of increasing polarity such as ethyl acetate, acetone, ethanol, methanol and distilled water were used to extract the bioactive compounds from the leaves of A. vera. Antibacterial activity of A. vera was analysed against five human clinical pathogens by agar well diffusion method. The maximum antibacterial activities were observed in methanol extract followed by other organic and aqueous extracts. It was also found that remarkable antibacterial activities with methanolic and ethanolic extracts of A. vera compared with the standard antibiotic, tetracycline that was not active against Escherichia coli >and Shigella boydii and supported the view that A. vera is a potent antimicrobial agent compared with the conventional antibiotic.