A Group of IPB Researchers Used Bamboo Leaves Extract to Prevent Bacterial Infections in Livestock
Diarrhoea is a multifactorial disease entity that can have serious financial and animal welfare implications in livestock. It has been estimated that 75% of early calf mortality in dairy herds is caused by acute diarrhoea in the pre-weaning period. Diarrhoea is a common complaint in cattle and young ruminants. Neonatal calf diarrhea remains one of the most important problems faced by livestock, causing great economic losses. In addition to increasing maintenance costs and mortality rates in livestock, diarrhea can also decrease livestock productivity.
Regardless of the cause, diarrhea prevents the absorption of fluids from the intestines; also, body fluids pass from the scouring calfs body into the intestines. Livestock affected by diarrhea will lead to failure of intestinal fluid absorption. Livestock will be dehydrated and in severe conditions will cause death. The cause of this disease is the presence of bacteria Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium.
Generally, infections that are caused by bacteria are treated with antibiotics. When used appropriately, antibiotics are relatively safe with typically few side effects. However, some antibiotics are notorious for producing side effects that can be especially intolerable. An antibiotic side effect is defined as an unwanted reaction that occurs in addition to the desirable therapeutic action of the antibiotic. The use and misuse of antibiotics in farm animal settings as growth promoters or as nonspecific means of infection prevention and treatment has boosted antibiotic consumption and resistance among bacteria in the animal habitat. This reservoir of resistance can be transmitted directly or indirectly to humans through food consumption and direct or indirect contact.
Such situation encouraged a group research team of the Department of Nutrition Science and Feed Technology, of the Faculty of Animal Husbandry of Bogor Agricultural University (FAPET IPB), namely I Komang G Wiryawan, Sri Suharti, and Sinta Agustina. They carried out the research program to observe the anti-bacterial activity on bamboo rope (Gigantochloa apus) leaves with different types of solvents against bacteria E. coli and S. typhimurium.
Their study took bamboo rope leaves as the main ingredient because bamboo rope can be used as a traditional medicine. In addition, it also contains alkaloids, saponins, tannins, phenolic, flavonoids, triterpenoids, and glycosides that potentially inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria. Solvent is one of factors that can affect the ability of an ingredient in inhibiting the growth of pathogenic bacteria.
Previous research on extraction processes used aquadest as solvent, but extracting with aquadest has a weakness. The processes take a long time and require high temperature in the process of evaporating the solvent. "Therefore, in this study we use ethanol and methanol as solvents. Both solvents have a lower boiling point than aquadest, "said I Komang G Wiryawan.
The study tried to extract bamboo rope leaves utilizing maseration method using ethanol 70 percent and methanol. Antibacterial activity test was done by using Kirby and Bauer diffusion agar method. The concentration of bamboo rope leaves extract was 0.00%, 0.02%, 0.04%, 0.06%, 0.08% and 0.02% cotrimoxazole as positive controls. Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) values were calculated on the basis of the highest anti-bacterial activity.
The results showed that bamboo rope leaves extract with ethanol at 0.04%, 0.06% and 0.08% level had low antibacterial activity (<5 mm), while methanol extract up to 0.08% level did not have anti bacterial activity against growth of E. coli and S. typhimurium. MIC values of ethanol extract of bamboo leaves against Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium bacteria were 0.2% and 0.3%. The research concluded that the bamboo leaves extracted with ethanol can be a better antibacterial compared they extracted with methanol. (Wied)
