Abstract
BackgroundPresent investigation deals with antimicrobial screening of ten medicinally important plants used by the inhabitants of district Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) for different infectious diseases.MethodsAqueous, n-hexane and ethanolic extracts of each plant were tested for their antimicrobial activity against both Gram positive and Gram negative strains of bacteria, as well as strain of yeast. Agar well diffusion and broth dilution methods were used to determine the antimicrobial activity of different plant extracts.ResultsThe results indicated that all plants exhibited antimicrobial activity against one or more test pathogens. Interestingly, extracts of three plants showed strong and broad spectrum activity as compared to rest of the extracts which demonstrated the moderate activity. On the whole ethanolic extracts exhibited maximum antimicrobial effect than their corresponding aqueous and n-hexane extracts, when compared with standard antibiotics i.e., Streptomycin and Tetracycline. Among various extracts, only ethanloic extract of Azadirachta indica and aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Eucalyptus globulus and Bergenia ciliata and ethanolic extract of Punica granatum were found to have potentially promising activity against test microorganisms.ConclusionDifferent plant extracts show promising antimicrobial activity justifying their usage in traditional medicines. This study will be continued to identify more plants with potential antimicrobial components.
Highlights
Present investigation deals with antimicrobial screening of ten medicinally important plants used by the inhabitants of district Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) for different infectious diseases
Studies claimed that some plants, which are already used as traditional medicine, possess antimicrobial properties against bacteria, fungi, and viruses [8,9] and preparation from such plants considered to be effective against diseases of microbial etiology like small pox, tuberculosis, typhoid and diphtheria etc. [10,11,12]
In the present study the efforts were made to investigate the antimicrobial activity of those plant species which are used to treat various infectious diseases like syphilis, leprosy, tuberculosis, pneumonia, whooping cough and urinary tract infections [2]
Summary
Present investigation deals with antimicrobial screening of ten medicinally important plants used by the inhabitants of district Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) for different infectious diseases. Since most of the infectious diseases are commonly treated with antibiotics and some antibiotics like Penicillin is added to items such as chewing gums, mouthwashes and toothpastes Due to this indiscriminate use of antimicrobial drugs, have lead to the problem of drug resistance [13,14]. It was found that production of synthetic drugs results into the pollution of natural resources and leads to activation of antibiotic resistant genes in bacterial population in the environment [21] All these factors associated with the use of synthetic drugs, has always been one of the driving force that encourage the researchers to search for the safe and economic alternatives from bio resource. One approach is to screen the local medicinal plants for possible antimicrobial properties
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