Antimicrobial activity of extracts of Vernonia amygdalina leaves from cultivated mother plants and progeny

The antimicrobial activity of Vernonia amygdalina chloroform (CHCl 3 ) and methanol (MeOH) leaves extracts were assayed against standard microorganisms. Two Gram positive bacteria ( Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus ), and one Gram negative ( Pseudomonas aeruginosa ) and two fungi ( Aspergillus niger and Candida albicans ). The leaves were harvested from mother plants and atissue culture raised progeny growing at the experimental area of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants and Traditional Medicine Research Institute. Discdiffusion method was used for determination of the inhibition zone as indicator of the antimicrobial activity. The extracts from V. amygdalina exhibited varying degrees of inhibition activity against the studied bacteria and fungi. The highest value of inhibition (30 mm) obtained was on Staphylococcus aureus using CHCl 3 extract, while the lowest activity was found in the MeOH extract of the Mother plants on tested organisms, comparison with the same extract of progeny. B. subtilis and S. aureus were highly susceptible to theCHCl 3 extracts of both mother plant and progeny, but P. aeruginosa was less sensitive to all different types of the studied extracts.Both types of extracts (CHCl 3 and MeOH) of the leaves from mother plants showed low to moderate activity against both fungi ( A. niger, C. albicans ) compared to the extracts from progeny. From this study it appears that the leaves extracts from V. amygdalina , either frommother plants or progeny had a comparable antimicrobial efficiency, which gives opportunities to propagation and commercial production of this multipurpose plant in Sudan. This result also suggested that V. amygdalina may have individual components that can be used as antibacterial and antifungal.