Antibacterial and Antifungal Activity of Plant Extracts from Spinacia oleraceae L. (Amaranthaceae)

Annam Zikrea,Firza Shafique,Mehwish Naseer,Qaiser Akram,Qurban Ali,Rumana Sadiq,Sohail Akhter,Tanzila Rafique,Uzma Naureen

doi:10.9734/jpri/2021/v33i22b31410

Abstract

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea L. SO) leaves represent an important dietary source, have high nutritional value and antimicrobial properties. Spinach leaves have been used in the treatment of human diseases since ancient times. Here, the aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial and antifungal activities of ethanolic extract of Spinach oleracea leaves by determining the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) using well diffusion method against bacterial species Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus and Klebseilla pneumonia and fungal species Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Candida albicans and Fusarium oxysporum. We evaluated from present data that ethanolic extract of root showed zone of inhibition ranges from 6 mm to 21 mm, ethanolic extract of stem showed zone of inhibition ranges from 8 mm to 21 mm and ethanolic extract of leaf showed zone of inhibition ranges from 9 mm to 22 mm from concentration 25 mg/ml to 100mg/ml. Leaf extract has high antibacterial and antifungal activity against bacterial and fungal species while root extract has low antibacterial and antifungal activity against bacterial and fungal species. Activity of plant extract was increased by the increasing concentration of extracts. Very low zone of inhibition was found at concentration 25 mg/1 ml DMSO which ranges from 6 mm to 14 mm while very high zone of inhibition was found at concentration 100 mg/ml which ranges from 6 mm to 22 mm. So, ethanolic extracts of Spinach oleraceae has good efficiency against bacterial and fungal species.

Highlights

Our ecosystem, environment and human health is going to be destroyed due to the excessive use of antibiotics
The effect of Spinach oleraceae plant extracts was evaluated by using stem, leaves eaves and roots at different concentrations 25 mg/ml, 50 mg/ml, mg/ml, and 100 mg/ml against the bacterial and fungal strains
Gram-positive bacteria (S. aureus and B. subtilis subtilis) showed high zone of inhibition as compared to gram gram-negative bacteria and zone of inhibition were increased by increasing the concentrations of the extracts

Summary

Introduction

Environment and human health is going to be destroyed due to the excessive use of antibiotics. All pathogenic bacteria have resistance factor against antimicrobial drugs bacteria are major failure in the treatment of infectious diseases [1-5]. It is necessary to develop alternative solutions to control resistant bacteria. One of the possible strategies is phytochemicals that have antibacterial activity against pathogens. Researchers investigated that plants are major source of antimicrobial agents [6,7]. Many medicinal plants such as Coriander, parsley, oleander, myrtle, mint, henna, Aloe vera, christ’s thorn, olive, chamomile, cinnamon, licorice, and ginger are source of therapeutic agents [8,9]

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Conclusion