COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF DIFFERENT PARTS OF ABELMOSCHUS MOSCHATUS AGAINST MULTI-RESISTANT PATHOGENS

Now a day the exposure of multi-resistance human pathogens has challenged our existing defense to save human being. To minimize such alarming issue, identification of naturally-occurring antimicrobial agents from plant origin has become a realistic and powerful tool to the researchers. Therefore the aim of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial potential of the ethanolic extracts of different parts of Abelmoschus moschatus (A. moschatus) against some important human bacterial and fungal pathogens. Different parts (leaves, stem bark, fruits pulp and seeds) of A. moschatus were extracted with ethanol to get crude ethanolic leaves (LE), stem bark (SBE), fruits pulp (FPE) and seed extracts (SE). Antimicrobial activity of LE, SBE, FPE and SE were assessed by disk diffusion and serial dilution method. All the extracts showed moderate antimicrobial activity against all tested pathogens. Among the extracts LE was comparatively highly sensitive against all tested pathogens. In case of S. dyesenteriae and S. sonnei zone of inhibition of LE (26 and 28 mm diameter with MIC 31.25 and 62.5 µg/ml; respectively) was higher than the standard Gentamicin (24 and 26 mm diameter respectively). The MIC value of the extracts ranges from 31.25 to 125 µg/ml. All extracts except stem bark showed MIC=MBC against both S. aureus and E. coli. In conclusion, the spectrum of activity suggests that ethanolic extracts of A. moschatus could be a possible source to get noble and potential herbal medicines to treat infections, hence justified the ethnic uses of this plant against various infectious diseases