Hyptis suaveolens L. leaf extracts in traditional health care systems

Hyptis suaveolens L. is a medical and food plant that is commonly used to treat various microbial infections in humans in many countries of the world. We aimed to study the aqueous and ethanol extracts of H. suaveolens leaves to determine their antibacterial, in-vitro antioxidant, and phytochemical potentials for traditional medicine by using chemical analysis. The aqueous and ethanol extracts inhibited the tested bacteria species with zones of 0–15 and 10–29 mm, respectively. On the typed culture isolates, the inhibition zones were 8–25 and 16–32 mm for the aqueous and ethanol extracts, respectively. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of the aqueous and ethanol extracts were not different, while the minimum bactericidal concentrations for the aqueous extract was higher than that for the ethanol extract. The screened phytochemicals were qualitatively and quantitatively present in both extracts, except for saponins which were absent in the aqueous extract. The free radical scavenging activity in the aqueous and ethanol extracts was 1.44 ± 0.50 and 1.57 ± 1.40 mg of ascorbic acid/1 g dry leaves, respectively. The ferric reduction was 1.19 ± 0.40 and 1.69 ± 0.18 mg of ascorbic acid/1 g dry leaves in the aqueous and ethanol extracts, respectively. Hydroxyl scavenging was 65.0 ± 0.9 and 0.43 ± 0.50 mg of ascorbic acid/1 g dry leaves for the aqueous and ethanol extracts, respectively. The present research suggests that the extract of H. suaveleons can be applied as a controlling antibacterial growth agent against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae and other bacterial pathogens. It is noteworthy that the ethanol extract was more effective than the aqueous one in terms of the antibacterial, phytochemical and antioxidant activities.