Antimicrobial Activity of Commonly Available Plants in Chennai for Human Pathogens

ABOUT AUTHOR
Edwina Jospiene. M* and V. Judia Harriet Sumathy
Postgraduate & Research Department of Biotechnology,
Women’s Christian College, Chennai, India–600006.
*E-mail: sbsj@rediffmail.com

ABSTRACT
Emergence of antibiotic resistance by bacteria commonly used for treatment of a variety of infectious diseases has alarmed the medical field. Plants are the major sources of therapeutic compounds that have been used in a variety of human ailments. A huge number of plants species of north –eastern region and Assam of India is known to have medicinal properties and used by tribes. The medicinal values of most of these are not yet evaluated scientifically for assessment of their potential as useful drugs. Destruction of forest and lack of proper documentation have made some of these species rare, threatened or endangered. Even though pharmacological industries have produced a number of new antibiotics in the last three decades, resistance to these drugs by microorganisms has increased. In general, bacteria have the genetic ability to transmit and acquire resistance to drugs, which are utilized as therapeutic agents. Such a fact is cause for concern, because of the number of patients in hospitals who have suppressed immunity, and due to new bacterial strains, which are multi-resistant. Consequently, new infections can occur in hospitals resulting in high mortality. Thus developing of modern biotechnology based conservation methodology like tissue culture, germplasm culture and screening of plant metabolites for discovering of potential drugs of pharmaceutical industry can be adopted for scientific exploration of these valuable bio-resources. Thus the present study was undertaken to study the Antimicrobial activity of the selected plants against three microorganisms for which the extraction was done with 3 different solvents. The Antimicrobial Activity Test was assessed with different solvents using Well Diffusion Method and Chloramphenicol and was compared with each other. The Phytochemical Test for each sample was evaluated to know the biochemical component present in the sample and finally Fourier transform spectroscopy test was conducted to qualitatively analyze the components present in each sample.
Keywords: Plants, Human ailments, Antimicrobial activity, Potential drugs, Pharmaceutical Industry