Antioxidant, Antibacterial and Antifungal Activities of the Aqueous and Hydroalcoholic Extracts of Western Algerian Urtica urens

Abstract

Recently, there is a great deal of attention for natural products due to its possible medicinal values. Its effectiveness has been proved through a sever-al studies in defeating some diseases. The present study aimed to investigate the antioxidant, antibacterial and antifungal activities of Urtica urens from Western Algeria. Leaves and roots were extracted with 80 % Ethanol and water. The 2.2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and β-carotene bleaching tests were used to assess the antioxidant activity in addition to polyphenols analysis, while the agar well diffusion were used to screen the antimicrobial activity against some Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacteria and the fungi. Among the studied extracts, hydroalcoholic extracts of leaves and roots pre-sented the highest total phenolic values (26.2 and 20.9 mg GAE/g), flavo-noids with (15.7 and 12.2 mg quercetin/g) and condensed tannins with (56.4 and 30.1 mg GAE/g), compared to the water extracts. Once again, the 80 % ETOH leaves exhibited the highest antioxidant capacity with an IC50 of 2.59 mg/ml, followed by the water leaves with an IC50 of 6 mg/ml. On the other hand, the hydroalcoholic extracts exhibited the highest inhibition of β-carotene bleaching with 42.6 % to the roots and 37.9 % to the leaves. The ETOH leaves and ETOH roots of U. urens were the most effective extracts being able to repress the growth of the pathological tested strains including fungi. Therefore, it is recommended the use of U. urens that has been poorly recognized for a long time by the population of the selected region.