Heneicosane—A novel microbicidal bioactive alkane identified from Plumbago zeylanica L

Abstract

Today the quick advancement of multi drug resistance in microorganisms is expanding worldwide and the related medical issues for the treatment of infectious diseases that researchers claim could return to the stage of the pre-antibiotic era. Medicinal plants possess a potential holistic role for the provision of drugs to cure microbial infections. The present work, has aimed to isolate and analyze the new bioactive molecule and to test their antimicrobial activities from the Plumbago zeylanica L leaf extracts. For analyzing the phytochemistry and microbicidal activities of the herb, extracts with various solvents have been used. The various crude leaf extracts with antimicrobial activity was treated against pathogenic microorganisms such as two Gram positive, two Gram negative, one acid fast staining bacteria and one fungus using agar well method. New bioactive molecule was isolated via GC–MS, TLC, HPLC, FTIR and NMR spectrum. Current study had used ethyl acetate leaf extract and exhibited excellent antimicrobial activity compared with other extracts and conventional drugs. The ethyl acetate extract was analyzed by GC–MS which was detected in fifteen compounds, followed by TLC analysis to elucidate the ten compounds with ten fractions. Among the active fractions, a single compound was detected using HPLC analysis. The identified bioactive molecule Heneicosane was used for measuring the antimicrobial activity. Depending on the results obtained, it was verified that heneicosane exhibited excellent antimicrobial activity against Streptococcus pneumoniae 31 ± 0.64 mm and Aspergillus fumigatus 29 ± 0.86 mm respectively at 10 μg/ml concentrations. Hence this study derives its novelty in isolating the bioactive molecule with pronounced microbicidal role from the herbal source mentioned.