Pharmacological Investigation of Leaves of Carica papaya

Abstract

The study was designed for pharmacological investigation of methanolic extract of leaves of Carica papaya and screening of their biological activities like, antimicrobial and free antioxidant activities. The powdered leaves of Carica papaya was extracted with methanol. This study was conducted using only the methanolic extrarct. In antimicrobial activity investigation, methanolic crude extract of Carica papaya (leaves) showed moderate activity against the tested bacteria. They were appeared very little zone of inhibition against gram positive & gram negative bacteria. The three different concentration of methanolic extract of papaya leaves was used in antibacterial test. Which is compared to kanamycin (30 μg/disc) used as positive control in this study. The range of zone of inhibition was observed in between 6-11 mm depending on the concentration of the extract. Another study was conducted to evalute the total antioxidant capacity of methanolic extract of carica papaya leaves using 2,2-Diphenyl-1-Picryl-Hydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging method. In evaluation of free radical scavenging activity it was found that crude methanolic extract of carica papaya (leaves) exhibited moderate free radical scavenging activity