PHYTOCHEMICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF NIGERIAN KALANCHOE PINNATA (LAM.) STEM-BARK

Kalanchoe pinnata also known as Bryophyllum pinnatum and commonly referred to as Life or Miracle plant is used in traditional medicine in some parts of Nigeria. The stem-bark of the plant was extracted with 70% ethanol and the crude extract evaluated for its phytochemical constituents as well as pharmacological activities. The phytochemical profile showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, phenolics, steroids/terpenes and tannins while the quantitative analysis gave the phenolics content to be 5.538 ± 0.005 mg gallic acid equivalent, flavonoid content as 0.242 ± 0.001 mg quercetin equivalent and tannin content as 0.019 ± 0.001 mg tannic acid equivalent per gram of extract. The scavenging activity on DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl) radical showed that the plant exhibited higher antioxidant activity with IC50 value of 40.56 and 37.28 µg/ml for ascorbic acid and the extract respectively. The antimicrobial activity results showed that the extract inhibited the growth of micro-organisms such as Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumonia and Aspergillus niger; while the extract was inactive against Salmonella typhi and Candida albicans. These results give scientific evidence for the use of the plant in folk medicine.