ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF ETHNOMEDICINAL PLANTS OF IRULARS OF WESTERN GHATS

ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF ETHNOMEDICINAL PLANTS OF IRULARS OF WESTERN GHATS

Renita Shirley and Lali Growther*

Department of Microbiology, Hindusthan College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACT: The present study report deals with the medicinal plants used by the irular tribal people of Coimbatore against pyogenic infections. Five different plants like Abutilon indicum, Datura metel, Lantana Camaro, Tridax procumbens and  Leucas aspera were collected and their antimicrobial activity were tested against bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Bacillus anthracis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Shigella dysenteriae, Salmonella typhi, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus vulgaris and fungi such as Aspergillus niger, Mucor rouxii, Fusarium solani, and Penicillium chrysogenum. All the plants showed antimicrobial activity. Among these Abutilon indicum, Datura metel, Lantana Camaro showed good zone of inhibition against the test organisms. Datura metel showed high zone of inhibition. The extracts of Datura metel showed lowest Minimal inhibitory concentration. Phytochemical analysis showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins and phenols.

Medicinal plants,

antimicrobial activity,

Minimal Inhibitory Concentration,  Phytochemical analysis,

Datura metel

INTRODUCTION: India is one of the twelve mega-biodiversity countries of the World having rich vegetation with a wide variety of plants with medicinal value. Particularly in the developing countries like India, herbal medicines have good values in treating many diseases ^1-2. The fact that the tribes all over the world owning their own culture based on that they developed their own system of medical practices, which are being ethno-medicines, there are numerous herbs available in their surroundings and that herbs are being used by tribal community as food and medicine for curing their diseases they have been continued to live in forest environment since from many generations and developed their own knowledge on flora and fauna of the forest that are known as folk or indigenous knowledge.

Large sections of the Indian population still rely on traditional herbal medicine ³. It has been reported that about 64% of the total world population is using traditional medicine to satisfy their health care needs ⁴.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Collection of Plant Material:

Medicinal plants were collected from fields of tribal area at Siruvani hills near Coimbatore.

Extraction procedure:

The fresh leaves were collected washed with sodium hypochloride and rinsed twice with distilled water ⁵.  Then the leaves were air dried under shade. Dried leaves were powdered and extracted with solvents like petroleum ether, benzene, chloroform, ethanol and methanol using soxhlet apparatus. All the extracts were poured into sterile dry petri plates and the solvents were evaporated. The sediments were scrapped off, weighed and dissolved in DMSO.

Antimicrobial activity: The antimicrobial activity of the plant extracts were done by agar well diffusion method.

Test organisms:

Test organisms are Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Bacillus cereus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Shigella dysenteriae, Salmonella typhi, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus vulgaris Aspergillus niger, Mucor rouxii, Fusarium solani, Penicillium chrysogenum

Agar well diffusion method:

Agar well diffusion method is done to detect the antimicrobial activity. Sterile Muller Hinton Agar (MHA) plates were used for sensitivity testing. The test cultures were incubated at 37⁰C for 24 hours and swabbed onto the MHA plates. Then wells were prepared to load different concentration like 30, 40, 50, 60 µl for bacteria and 50, 60, 70, 80 µl for fungi extract. DMSO and a standard antibiotic gentamycin and amphotericin served as control. The plates were allowed to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes and incubated in upright position at 37⁰C for 24 hours. The diameters of the zone of inhibition (ZOI) were measured with a ruler. The measurement is recorded ^6-8.

Minimal inhibitory concentration:

Crude extract of the plants are serially diluted. 2.5 ml of nutrient broth is added to equal volume of the extract and serially diluted. This makes the two fold dilution of the extract (1:2, 1:4, 1:8, 1:16 and 1:32).  0.1 ml of the test culture was added to the serially diluted tubes and each dilution is plated on to the nutrient agar plates and then the tubes and plates were incubated and results are noted ^{6, 9-10}. Medicinal properties of plants normally depend on the presence of certain phytochemical principles such as alkaloids, flavonoids, sterols, saponins, glycosides, tannins and phenols which are the Bioactive compounds responsible for the antimicrobial property. The reconstituted extracts were examined for the presence of these compounds. Phytochemical screening was performed using standard procedures^11-12.

RESULTS:

Plant Collection and Extraction:

The percentage yield of different plant extracts using soxhlet apparatus (10g of plant sample) were tabutaled (Table 1)

TABLE 1: YIELD OF PLANT EXTRACTS IN DIFFERENT SOLVENTS

Antimicrobial Activity:

Agar well diffusion method:

The results were shown in Table 2 and 3. The ethanol and methanolic extract of Abutilon indicum showed moderate zone of inhibition and the ethanolic and methanolic extracts of Lantana Camaro and Datura metel showed good zone of inhibition against the test oraganisms. The test organisms inhibited were shown in the Table 2 & 3. The methanolic and ethanolic extracts of Datura metel showed good zone of inhibition against all test organisms except Proteus vulgaris. In fungi Aspergillus niger, Mucor rouxii and Penicillium chrysogenum were inhibited. The results were shown in Table 4 and 5. The ethanol extract of the plants exerted greater antibacterial activity than the other extracts^13-14.

TABLE 2: ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF PLANT EXTRACTS

• No zone of inhibition

TABLE 3: ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF PLANT EXTRACTS

No zone of inhibition

TABLE 4: ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF PLANT EXTRACTS

TABLE 5: ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF PLANT EXTRACTS

no zone of inhibition

Minimal Inhibitory Concentration:

The lowest concentration of dilution that inhibits the growth varied according to organism. The minimal inhibitory concentration of Lantana camaro to inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus aureus is 1:4 (50mg/ml) dilution, whereas for other organisms like Pseudomonas aeruginosa  Streptococcus pyogens, Bacillus cereus Salmonella typhi, Klebsiella pneumonia Escherichia coli and Shigella sonnei  it is 1:8 (25mg/ml) dilution. For fungi it is 1:4(50mg/ml)

 The ethanolic and methanolic extract of Datura metel showed lowest concentration that inhibits the growth of pathogenic organisms at a dilution of 1:8 (25mg/ml) dilution and for fungi 1:4(50mg/ml).

Phytochemical Analysis:

Ethanolic extracts of Datura metel showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, phenols, glycocides. Methanolic extracts showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, sterols and tannins. These results were similar to the results observed by Tahiya et al., 2014¹⁵.

CONCLUSION: In the present study Lantana Camaro and Datura metel showed good zone of inhibition against test organisms the methanol and ethanol extracts showed good results than other solvents. Among this Datura metel showed high zone of inhibition. The MIC showed strong antimicrobial and antifungal activity at lowest concentration. Phytochemical analysis showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, phenols and glycosides. These phytochemical compounds are responsible for the antimicrobial activity. As a result these plants can be used to treat pyogenic infections.

ACKNOWLEDGEMNET: The authors are thankful to the Management of Hindusthan College of Arts and Science for allowing us to do this Research work. We thank the tribal people who helped us to gather information from their region.

REFERENCES:

1. Prabhat, Ajaybhan, Navneet and Avnish Chauhan: Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity of Six Medicinal Plants against Dental Pathogens. Report and Opinion, 2010; 2(6), 37- 42.
2. Saranraj P and Sivasakthi S: Medicinal Plants and its Antimicrobial Properties: A Review. Global Journal of Pharmacology, 2014; 8 (3): 316-327.
3. Ashish K Sharma, Rajesh Kumar, Anurag Mishra Rajiv Gupta: Problems associated with clinical trials of Ayurvedic medicines. Brazilian Journal of Pharmacognosy, 2010; 20(2): 276-281.
4. Jon C Tilburt, Ted J Kaptchuk: Herbal medicine research and global health: an ethical analysis. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2008; 86: 577- 656.
5. Pavithra PS, Janani VS, Charumathi KH, Indumathy R, Potala S, Verma RS: Antibacterial activity of plants used in Indian herbal medicine. Int J Green Pharm, 2010; 4:22-8.
6. Sen A, Batra A: Determination of antimicrobial potentialities of different solvent extracts of the medicinal plant: Phyllanthus amarus and Thonn., Int J Green Pharm, 2012; 6:50-6.
7. Ramalivhana S, Samie A, Iweriebor BC, Uaboi -Egbenni P, Idiaghe JE and Momba MNB: Antibacterial activity of honey and medicinal plant extracts against Gram negative microorganism. African Journal of Biotechnology, 2014; 13(4), 616-625.
8. Anitha Muthusamy, Punitha M and Leena Grace Beslin: Phytochemical screening of Datura metel linn and its antimicrobial activity on selected human pathogens. J. Bioassays, 2014; 3 (11): 3474-3478.
9. Kang CG, Hah DS, Kim CH, Kim YH, Kim E, Kim JS: Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity of the Methanol Extracts from 8 Traditional Medicinal Plants. Toxicological Research, 2011; 27(1):31-36.
10. Abedini A, Roumy V, Mahieux S, Gohari A, Farimani MM, Rivière C, Samaillie J, Sahpaz S, Bailleul F, Neut C, Hennebelle T: Antimicrobial activity of selected Iranian medicinal plants against a broad spectrum of pathogenic and drug multiresistant micro-organisms. Lett Appl Microbiol. 2014;59(4):412-21.
11. Shahla Sahraei, Zaynab Mohkami, Farhad Golshani, Fereshteh Javadian, Saeide Saeidi and Gelareh Sohil Baigi: Antibacterial activity of five medicinal plant extracts against some human bacteria, European Journal of Experimental Biology, 2014, 4(3):194-196.
12. Preeti Gauniyal, Uday Vir Singh Teotia: Phytochemical screening and antimicrobial activity of some medicinal plants against oral flora, Asian Pac. J. Health Sci., 2014; 1(3): 255-263.
13. Siva Sakthi S, Saranraj P and Geetha M: Antibacterial evaluation and phytochemical screening of Datura metel leaf extracts against bacterial pathogens. International J. of Pharmacology and Biological Archives, 2011; 2(4): 1130-1136.
14. Sekar D, Kolanjinathan K, Saranraj P and Gajendiran K: Screening of Phyllanthus amarus, Acalypha indica and Datura metel for its antimicrobial activity against selected pathogens. International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biological Archives, 2012; 3(5): 1231-1236.
15. Tahiya Hilal Ali Alabri, Amira Hamood Salim Al Musalami, Mohammad Amzad Hossain, Afaf Mohammed Weli, Qasim Al-Riyami: Comparative study of phytochemical screening, antioxidant and antimicrobial capacities of fresh and dry leaves crude plant extracts of Datura metel L. Journal of King Saud University - Science, 2014; 26: 237- 243
    

    ---

How to cite this article:

Shirley R and Growther L: Antibacterial Activity of Ethnomedicinal Plants of Irulars of Western Ghats. Int J Pharm Sci Res 2015; 6(7): 2837-40.doi: 10.13040/IJPSR.0975-8232.6(7).2837-40.

All © 2013 are reserved by International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research. This Journal licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.