In recent years, the use of natural products became a big necessity in order to prevent human health and to protect the environment besides risks caused by using synthetic chemicals. However, Opuntia-ficus-indica mucilage had an ample application for ethno medicine, there is no reports focusing on their chemical composition and biological activity. In this work, we aimed to investigate, for the first time, the antioxidant activity, the total phenolic and the flavonoid contents, the antimicrobial and allelopathic activities of the mucilage extracted from Opuntia-ficus- indica rackets collected at three different ages (1, 2 and 3 years old) originated from three Tunisian provenances (Sbeitla, Matmata and Ouslatia)
These results showed that Opuntia ficus-indica mucilage could be used to treat against fungal attack, bacterial infections and as biopesticides and replace chemicals compounds of a high degree of toxicity such as glyphosate (roindop) in order to improve and preserve our health and our environment. Further, it would be important to intensify such biological treatments on other strains and other plants at various concentrations. Thus, mucilage could be used to evaluate their effect in the treatment of polluted water, all optimizing the treatment conditions.