**2. Material and methods**

#### **2.1. Plant material and preparation of extracts**

Fresh leaves of *Phyllanthus amarus* Schum were collected from the campus of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in March 2012. The leaves were identified by botanists and a voucher specimen (UIH ADE/003/2012) deposited at the herbarium of the Department of Botany, University of Ibadan. The ground plant material (200 g) was shaken in 1 L distilled water for 48 h on an orbital shaker at room temperature of 24°C. The extract was filtered using a Buck‐ ner funnel and Whatman No 1 filter paper. The filtrate was concentrated to dryness under reduced pressure at 40ºC using a rotary evaporator. The thick solution was lyophilized us‐ ing freeze drying system for biological investigations. The extract yield was 13.85%.
