Abstract

IN VITRO ANTIMICROBIAL POTENTIAL OF BOERHAVIA DIFFUSA L. ROOT EXTRACT ON PATHOGENIC ORGANISMS

Sandeep Kamlekar*, Karunakar Kota, Jameela Tahashildar, VN Raju Erumalla*,Swetha Chenna

Abstract

The increasing prevalence of drug-resistant pathogens has gained the attention of pharmaceutical and scientific communities towards potential antimicrobial agents from plant derived sources. The present research work has been undertaken to study the antimicrobial activity of the methanolic extract of Boerhavia diffusa L. roots against some human pathogens like Escherichia coli MTCC 43, Pseudomonas aeruginosa MTCC 424, Salmonella typhimurium MTCC 98, Staphylococcus aureus MTCC 96, Shigella flexneri MTCC 1457, Streptococcus pneumoniae MTCC 655, Klebsiella pneumoniae MTCC 432 and fungi Aspergillus niger MTCC No.282 by using agar well diffusion method. Inhibition zones ranged between 4.26 ± 0.12 - 16.61± 0.24mm. Roots extract inhibited the growth of all tested microorganisms with large zones of inhibition. The standard antibiotics chloramphenicol and miconazole nitrate were found to have zone of inhibitions 10.40 ± 0.26 - 24.80 ± 0.37mm at the concentration of 30 μg/ml. In contrast, the inhibition zone of methanol (negative control) was almost zero for all the tested microorganisms. The spectrum activity of methanolic extract of this plant could be a possible source to obtain new and effective herbal medicines to treat various infectious diseases.

Keywords: Antimicrobial activity, Boerhavia diffusa L, methanolic extract, human pathogens, zones of inhibition.