ANTIMICROBIAL POTENTIALS OF FRUIT EXTRACT OF BETA VULGARIS (BEETROOT) AGAINST SOME BACTERIA AND FUNGI ISOLATES

ABSTRACT Red beet (Beta vulgarisis) is a swollen root, dark red-purple in color, consumed either raw as salad or further processed. Red beet gets its distinctive color due to the presence of nitrogen-containing water-soluble pigments betalains. It is widely used as a natural food colorant and labeled as E-162 Antibiotic resistance has become one of the major problems facing humanity. The need for new antimicrobials has been increased dramatically. Plants are considered as a major sources of new antibiotics due to the presence of phytochemicals. In Nigeria and other developing countries medicine plant materials have been used to treat various diseases since ancient times. The goal of our research is to evaluate the antimicrobial potentials of Beta vulgaris fruit extracts. The fruit of Beta vulgaris were screened for phytochemicals, antimicrobial activity and minimum inhibition concentration (MIC). The methanol minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) analysis. The result of the phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids while saponin and fat and oil was absent. The crude extracts did not showed any zones of inhibition against the following microorganisms namely; Salmonella, Candida 10 and 150, Aspergillus 24 and 93, E.coli, and Staphylococcus aureus.