| dc.description.abstract | Abelmoschus esculentus, commonly known as Okra, is traditionally used in the treatment of
cuts, wounds and boils. In this study, the antibacterial activity of the aqueous and ethanolic
extracts of the seeds of Okra was determined against Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates. Airdried,
pulverized samples of Okra seeds were separately extracted using 70% analytical grade
ethanol and distilled water, respectively. 500mg of the concentrated crude extract were
separately dissolved in 1ml of dimethylsulfoxide to obtain ethanolic and aqueous test samples
which were compared against 250mg/ml ciprofloxacin as a positive control. The antibacterial
activity of the extracts was determined using agar-well diffusion method on Muller-Hinton
agar on which Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolate was surface-spread. The diameter of the
inhibition zone was compared to the positive control and the minimum inhibitory
concentration of the extracts was determined. The isolates of P. aeruginosa were highly
sensitive to the positive control, ciprofloxacin, with inhibition zone diameter of 44mm
(significantly higher than ≥21mm) whereas they were only partially sensitive to both the
ethanol and aqueous extracts, with inhibition zones of 14mm and 10mm diameter,
respectively. The results of this study showed that Abelmoschus esculentus seed extracts are
not effective for use against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as there sensitivity was very low
compared to standard or positive control, ciprofloxacin. | en_US |
