Isolation of Solanine from Potato Leaves and Evaluation of Its Antimicrobial Activity

Herbal drug technology has become very important as they are considered to have very less or no side effects and toxic effects. Solanine is an alkaloid toxin found in members of the nightshade family, such as eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes, and the infamous deadly nightshades or belladonna. The objective of paper is to discover new possibilities of using traditional plant with proper chemical and pharmacological profile. The isolation of solanine from leaves of potato plant was done by authenticated process; dried leaves were used for the activity. The evaluation of solanine was done by standard chemical tests. The later process performed was thin layer chromatography which was performed by using chloroform: Menthol: Ammonia (7:3:0.5) solvent system for the analysis of glycoalkaloid solanin. IR graph of solanine resembling various peaks was obtained. Antimicrobial activity of solanine was tested on Gram-positive bacteria cultures prepared in nutrient agar medium. Ciprofloxacin was used as a standard drug. The antimicrobial activities of solanine were examined against bacillus substilis by cup plate method. The solanine showed effective inhibition against the bacillus substils and also against staphylococcus aureus.