Abstract

S. K. Reshmi, E. Sathya and P. Suganya Devi*

Many plant- derived molecules have shown a promising effect in therapeutics. Among the plants investigated to date, one showing enormous potential is the Piperaceae. The present study aimed to extract the phytochemical compounds in different solvent system in Piper longum, Piper nigrum and Piper cubeba as well as testing their antibacterial and antitumour activity. HPTLC analysis of P. nigrum sample showed six alkaloid bands two alkaloid bands were similar to Piperine standard 1 and 2, the other alkaloid may be piperidine, piperettine and piperanine. P. longum sample contain three alkaloid bands one band was similar to Piperine standard 1, the other may be piperlongumine and piperlonguminine and no alkaloid band was found in P. cubeba. The anti bacterial activity was tested against gram positive and negative organism using agar well diffusion method. High activity was found in P. nigrum ethanol extract against the organism Salmonella Typhii. The alkaloid piperdine was purified by refluxion method to check the antitumour activity which shows 51.38% of inhibition at 5 µg/ml concentration that conforms the compound piperidine to be used as anticancer drug for further mechanistic works.