EVALUATION OF ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY AND PHYTOCHEMICAL ACTIVITY OF GARCINIA LANCIFOLIA ROXB.

Flavonoids have been reported to have many pharmacological activities, antimicrobial, antioxidant, cytotoxic, chemoprevention activities along with strong antiproliferative effects. The fruits of  Garcinia lancaefolia Roxb., family Cluseaceae , a plant endemic to Assam has been used in locally to treat many diseases for which it was selected for investigationg its antimicrobial properties. No scientific validation has been made so far on its phytochemical content and the antibacterial activity for which the methanolic and water extract of plant parts were investigated by Agar Well Diffusion method. Furthermore, our phytochemical studies indicated that methanolic extract of Garcinia lancaefolia flowers and fruits contains flavonoids, tannins, reducing sugar, steroid terpene and cardiac glycosides. The total phenolic and flavonoids content studies were quantified for all the plant parts. Antibacterial activities of the crude extract were screened against wound infection causing 5 human pathogens. The most susceptible bacteria were S. aureus, followed by beta hemolytic Streptococcus pyogens, while the most resistant bacteria were E. coli, followed by Bacillus subtilis.  From the screening experiment, the crude fruit extracts showed the best antibacterial activity; hence this plant can be further subjected to isolation of the therapeutic antimicrobials and pharmacological evaluation. The largest zone of inhibition (ZOI) was obtained with the fruit juice against Staphylococcus aureus (19mm)followed by beta hemolytic Streptococcus pyogenes (16.2mm) and Bacillus subtilis (15mm).