Phytochemical and antibacterial investigation of Moringa oleifera seed: experimental and computational approaches

Abstract

The advent of antibiotic resistance and the growth of new strains of bacteria are of great concern to the world health sectors. Effective treatment of the infections caused by these human pathogens call for designing and development of new drugs with better efficiency. This study aimed at investigating the antibacterial activity of Moringa oleifera seed extract against some bacteria strains. The phytochemical and antibacterial activities of Moringa oleifera seed extract against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria were conducted using standard methods. The phytochemical analysis of the studied seed extract revealed the presence of alkaloids, tannins, saponins, phenols and flavonoids as secondary metabolites. The obtained result from the antibacterial study indicated that the extract exhibited high inhibition zones against all bacteria strain studied. Also, four molecular compounds from Moringa oleifera seed were selected based on their percentage yield and were optimized using density functional theory and they were used against five bacterial cell lines. It was observed that kaempferol and quercetin inhibited Escherichia coli. Kaempferol inhibited Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Streptococcus pneumonia while Quercetin showed highest inhibition against Staphylococcus aureus when compared with other compounds. This showed the effectiveness of Moringa oleifera seed in eradicating some infections caused by bacteria.