Kakkaba, Amina Abubakar <br/><br/>
PHARMACOGNOSTIC AND BIOLOGICAL STUDIES  OF Artemisia absinthium L. LEAF / 
AMINA ABUBAKAR KAKKABA; SUPERVISOR: ASST. PROF. DR. EMMANUEL MSHELIA HALILU 
 - xii, 71 sheets;  31 cm.  1 CD-ROM 
<br/><br/>Thesis (MSc) - Cyprus International University. Institute of Graduate Studies and Research Pharmacognosy Department 
<br/><br/>Includes bibliography (sheets 58-71) 
<br/><br/> ABSTRACT <br/>Artemisia absinthium L. (Wormwood) is a plant which belongs to the family <br/>Asteraceae and it has been used by traditional healers to treat many ailments and <br/>infections in African traditional medicine. It is popularly used in pharmaceutics to <br/>manufacture artemisinin-based combination therapy against malaria. There is a <br/>growing concern about the scourge of diseases caused by excessive free radicals in the <br/>body and lack of standardization of medicinal herbal products. Therefore, this research <br/>is aimed at evaluating the antibacterial and antioxidant activities of the extract. The <br/>powdered leaf powder was evaluated for its pharmacognostic profiles and then <br/>extracted successively using maceration method with methanol as solvent. AgNPs was <br/>characterized with the following techniques such as UV/VIS and FTIR. The extracts <br/>were screened for their phytochemical constituents using standard protocols. The <br/>preliminary phytochemical screening of the extracts revealed the presence of tannins, <br/>saponins, flavonoids and steroids and terpenoids. The thin layer chromatography <br/>(TLC) profiles of the resulting extracts were determined using suitable solvent <br/>systems. The petroleum ether extract showed 3 spots and the Rf values are 0.78, 0.44 <br/>and 0.14, whereas 8 spots were found in methanol extract with Rf values 0.90, 0.77, <br/>0.58, 0.35, 0.29, 0.19, 0.12 and 0.08. The antioxidant (free radical scavenging) activity <br/>of the extracts was measured using DPPH (2, 2-diphenyl-1- picryl hydrazyl) with <br/>ascorbic acid used as standard. The IC50 of the ascorbic acid and the extract were <br/>1.305mg/ml and 0.4128mg/ml respectively. The results were expressed in terms of <br/>percentage inhibition. The free radical scavenging activity of the extracts revealed <br/>lower activity and a subsequent increase then decline with decrease in concentration <br/>in the methanol extract when DPPH was used. The zone of inhibition for the extract, <br/>nanoparticles aare 0mm, 0.67mm and 9.33 for E. coli and 3.33mm, 1.67mm and <br/>12.33mm for Bacillus subtillis respectively. The minimum inhibitory concentration <br/>(MIC) of extract, nanoparticles and standard antibiotic are 0.44µg/ml, 0.40µg/ml and <br/>0.24µg/ml respectively. The results indicated that the extracts contain secondary <br/>metabolites which may be responsible for the antioxidant and antimicrobial activity <br/>demonstrated by the extract of A. absinthium L. and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs).<br/>Keywords: Antimicrobial characteristics, Antioxidant characteristics, Artemisia <br/>absinthium, Pharmacognostic characteristics.<br/> 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Anti-infective agents--Dissertations, Academic<br/>Antioxidants --Dissertations, Academic<br/>Absinth wormwood--Dissertations, Academic<br/>Pharmacognosy--Dissertations, Academic