Antimicrobial activity of extracts obtained from &lt;i&gt;Urera baccifera&lt;/i&gt; (L.) Gaudich

Sideney Becker Onofre,Patricia Fernanda Herkert

doi:10.5923/j.als.20120205.03

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to assess the antimicrobial activity of extracts from Urera baccifera. Aqueous, ethanol and methanol extracts made from the leaves, bark and roots of U. baccifera were tested, at different concentrations using the disk diffusion method, against the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853). Inoculated plates were incubated at 35Âº C Â± 1 C for 24 hours and the inhibition halos were assessed and interpreted. The methanol extracts from the leaves (ML) and roots (MR) had greatest antimicrobial activity against the three bacteria tested. The MICs of the ML and MR extracts against E. coli were 6.25 and 0.19 mg/L, respectively, and against P. aeruginosa and S. aureus they were 3.12 and 0.19 mg/L (for both species). The results show that the methanol extracts of the leaves and roots of U. baccifera are antimicrobially active against E. coli, P. aeruginosa and S. aureus.

Highlights

Since antiquity medicinal plants have been used in the treatment of several illnesses that afflict hu mans
Fro m the nine ext racts assessed in this work, only four showed antimicrobial activity
These were the ethanol extract fro m the bark (EB), the ethanol extract fro m the roots (ER), the methanol ext ract fro m the leaves (M L) and the methanol ext ract fro m the roots (MR). These data are shown in Table and Figure 2. An analysis of this data revealed that most of the antimicrobial activ ity of the four ext racts was against Escherichia coli, because all four ext racts inhibited its growth

Summary

Introduction

Since antiquity medicinal plants have been used in the treatment of several illnesses that afflict hu mans. This type of medicine corresponds to any plant-derived matter that is administered to a living being and presents a pharmacologica l property for the treatment of a pathological condition[1]. The use of plants in medicine is currently of great interest due to how difficu lt it is to treat some diseases, the resistance of microorganisms[4] and the increased cost of synthetic med ications[5] (Fuck et al, 2005). There are several types of antimicrobials in clinical use, many are ineffective against some types of microorganisms because of the ability of these organisms to quickly develop a resistance to the medicine[6]

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Methods

Results