Antibacterial and antifungal potential of leaves and twigs of Viscum album L.

Abstract

The leaves and twigs of Viscum album L. (Family: Loranthaceae) were extracted successively with various organic solvents and water. These crude extracts were assessed for antimicrobial activities against three gram positive bacteria that is Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Enterococcus faecium, five gram negative bacteria that is Escherichia coli,Bordetella bronchisiptica, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas syringae, one yeast that is Saccharomyces cerevisiae and one filamentous fungusAspergillus flavus by using disc diffusion method. The ethyl acetate, chloroform, ethanol, and methanol crude extracts of selected plant parts had significant antimicrobial activities on both gram positive and gram negative bacteria. The ethyl acetate and methanol crude extracts of leaves and twigs of V. album exhibited prominent activities against gram positive and gram negative bacteria used in comparison to other extracts which had moderate activity against all the tested bacteria. The antimicrobial activities of the crude extracts of the selected plant parts were more active against gram negative bacteria than gram positive bacteria. The standard reference antibiotics, ciprofloxacin (100 um/ml) and nystatin (1500 u/ml) were used as positive control. Key words: Antibacterial, antifungal, disc diffusion, Viscum album, ciprofloxacin, nystatin.