Abstract
The phytochemical investigation of the leaves of Litsea glutinosa revealed the presence of secondary metabolites like alkaloids, anthraquinones, cardiac glycosides, flavonoids, glycosides, phenols, saponins, steroids, tannins, terpenoids, volatile compounds, amino acids and carbohiydrates. The antimicrobial activity and minimum inhibition concentration values were determined for these phytochemical constituents as crude extracts using the agar well diffusion and two-fold serial dilution methods. The results indicated that Bacillus subtilis was the most susceptible bacterium with high inhibition zones for the methanol and chloroform extracts of 31 mm and 26 mm, respectively. The MIC values indicated that extracts possess good antimicrobial activity with significant MIC value against Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus pneumoniae at 31.2 µg/ml concentrations. The extracts showed marked antimicrobial activity against both bacteria and fungi. Among the bacterial strains, gram-positive bacteria were more susceptible than the gram-negative. All the 13 microorganisms tested showed dose dependent susceptibility towards the phytochemicals present in the foliar extracts. The study suggests that Litsea glutinosa leaves possess potent antimicrobial activity and can be a good source for the development of new antibiotics.
Highlights
In India, from ancient times, different parts of medicinal plants have been used to treat the infectious diseases which are the cause of premature deaths to an extent of 50,000 people every day globally (Anonymous, 2000)
Oxygenated Flavone Glycoside, named Glutin was isolated from the leaf extract of L. glutinosa (Wang et al, 2010)
It was observed that gram-positive bacteria were more susceptible than the gram-negative as has been found by Meera and Devi (2009), who studied the methanol extract of L. glutinosa leaves and had the similar result
Summary
In India, from ancient times, different parts of medicinal plants have been used to treat the infectious diseases which are the cause of premature deaths to an extent of 50,000 people every day globally (Anonymous, 2000). Robinson (Lauraceae) is an evergreen or deciduous, that reaches a height of 3-15 meters This species is native to India, South China to Malaysia, Australia and the western Pacific Islands. It is a medicinal plant known as Indian laural, soft/brown bollygum or beech/bolly beech, bollywood and sycamore. A paste prepared by grinding bark with water is used as a plaster in cases of sprain, bruises, wounds, inflammation, back pain, rheumatic and gouty joints, bone fractures, etc. It has analgesic, antiseptic and emollient effects (Devi and Meera, 2010). Received in revised form: 17 Mar 2018.
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