An assessment of the phytochemicals and antibacterial activity on pathogenic clinical isolates On extract ofphyllanthusniruri.

Abstract

Throughout the history of drug development, natural products have provided a fundamental source of drugs for fighting infections. In this study, the phytochemical constituents present in the leaf extract of Phyllanthus niruri (Keela Nelli) were screened and their antibacterial properties in vitro were determined using the agar diffusion plate method on selected human pathogens, namely Vibrio cholera 01ogawa, V. cholera 0139, V. parahaemolyticusVP81; O3:K6, Vibrio fluvialis, Salmonella enteritidis-A11, Shigella dysenteriae type 5, Enterotoxigenic E. coli, Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas sp. The solvent extracts revealed a good concentration dependent antibacterial activity against the test organisms similar to that of the standard antibiotic discs, such as Penicillin, Streptomycin, Kanamycin, Ampicillin, Amoxycillin and Rifampicin. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by free radical scavenging power against 1, 1diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical. The IC50 values of the methanolic extract of P. niruri was 49.2 µg/ml and that of control i.e. ascorbic acid was 39.1 µg/ml. Results of phytochemical components of the leaf extracts of Phyllanthus niruri were rich in the alkaloids, terpenoids, tannins, flavonoids and saponins, which might be responsible for its various bioactivities. Qualitative estimation was also done by FT-IR and GCMS analyses for the determination of major functional groups. The outcome of this study could therefore justify the ethno medicinal uses of P. niruri and the antibacterial and antioxidant activities of P. niruri against human pathogens.