Original Articles
S Abiraami Valli and S Uma Gow
Abstract
Intake of healthy food is highly essential to prevent various diseases. The natural product derived drugs seems to be less toxic and more effective. Identification and investigation of antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents from natural substances have been one of the research interests in recent years. Sprouts are highly nutritious as it contains enormous amount of phytoconstituents, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and amino acids which are of great importance as these are most useful in maintaining human health with less amount of anti-nutritional factor especially the phytic acid. Phytic acid present in the seeds gets degraded due to the phytase enzyme produced during sprouting. Individually each sprout is highly nutritious. The present study was carried out to analyse the bioactive compounds present in the mixed leguminous sprouts. Screening the phytoconstituents by preliminary qualitative phytochemical tests and quantification of the primary and secondary constituents were carried out in fresh aqueous and methanol extracts of the sprouts. The characterization of phytochemicals were analysed through FTIR. Identification of the specific phytochemicals was done through TLC analysis and the confirmation of the specific bioactive compounds was carried out through GC-MS analysis. Antibacterial activity of the mixed sprouts against several human pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Shigella flexneri were studied. Maximum zones of inhibition were shown by Shigella flexneri, Salmonella typhi and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory studies proved the presence of therapeutic potential of the phytochemicals such as terpenoids, fatty acids, proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins. Further through in silico analysis, docking studies were performed to confirm the functional role of the specific therapeutic phytochemicals. Thus, the fresh and dried mixed sprouts enriched with the phytoconstituents can be recommended as a good source of natural therapeutic agents.