Antimicrobial activities and phytochemical analyses of Myristica fragrans Seed extracts on Some Clinical Microbial Isolates

The global public health challenge resulting from antimicrobial resistance (AMR) reaching about 5 million annually necessitates the search for viable alternatives to synthetic drugs for treating infectious diseases. In this study, the phytochemical and antimicrobial activities of the Myristica fragrans seed extract was evaluated against some selected clinical isolates. The phytochemical screening was performed using standard methods, while the antimicrobial assay, and the minimum inhibitory/ bactericidal concentration tests of the extracts were conducted using agar well and broth dilution methods respectively. Antibiotics susceptibility test was used to determine the sensitivity of the isolates to the seed extracts. The phytochemical analysis yielded some extracts with Quinones, alkaloids, saponins in higher quantities. The results from the antimicrobial assay showed that methanolic extracts had higher inhibitory zones of 20mm against Escherichia coli and least in Staphylococcus aureus with 9mm. The minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration values of 31.25 mg/ml and 62.5mg/ml were recorded for the methanolic and aqueous extracts. Conventional antibiotics like streptomycin, tarvid and gentamycin showed higher zones of inhibition than the seed extracts while others such as ampiclox, erythromycin and pefloxacin failed to inhibit the growth of some isolates. This study showed that Myristica fragrans seed extracts possess the potentials to treat antibiotic-resistant infections caused by the tested isolates in this study. However, there is need for further studies on optimization and standardization of the extraction method, mechanisms of actions of the bioactive compounds and toxicity of the Myristica fragrans seeds extract.