Brine shrimp toxicity of various polarities leaves and fruits crude fractions Ziziphus jujuba native to Oman and their antimicrobial potency

Ziziphus jujuba (Z. jujube) is a herb used traditionally for the treatment of different aliment since ancient times, however, the scientific information on this plant is still insufficient. The pure active chemical compounds and crude extracts of Z. jujube can be used in food, formulated pharmaceutical products, natural antioxidant, antibiotics, anticancer agent and preservatives. Therefore, the objective of this work is to determine the cytotoxic and antimicrobial activities of different polarity of crude fractions of locally grown Z. jujube by applying brine shrimp lethality and agar gel disc diffusion bioassay. The cytotoxic result reveals that all prepared crude fractions from the leaves and fruits were lethal to all shrimp larvae at a concentration of 1000 mu g/ml. Among the leaves crude fractions, butanol extract showed the highest cytotoxic activity with LC50 value of 8.69 mu g/ml, whereas the lowest activity was in chloroform crude extract with LC50 value of 45.12 mu g/ml. Similarly, in fruits, the highest activity was in ethyl acetate extract with an LC50 value of 11.62 mu g/ml and the lowest was in water extract with an LC50 value of 149.28 mu g/ml. The methanol and Is corresponding fractions were displayed moderate antimicrobial activity against Gram (+ and -) bacteria at various concentrations with a zone of inhibition range of 0-17 mm. Therefore, the active polar crude fraction of Z. jujuba or its pure component could be candidates for use as safe, effective and comparatively cheap antibiotics and anticancer agents.