ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF SOME SELECTED INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS

There is a continuous and urgent need to discover new antimicrobial compounds with diverse chemical structures and novel mechanisms of action because there has been an alarming increase in the incidence of new and reemerging infectious diseases. In recent years, drug resistance to human pathogenic bacteria has been commonly reported from all over the world. In the present scenario of emergence of multiple drug resistance to human pathogenic organisms, this has necessitated a search for new antimicrobial substances from other sources including plants. In the present study aqueous- ethanol extract of ten plants each belonging to different families was evaluated for antibacterial activity against medically important bacteria viz. S. aureus (MTCC 3160), B. subtilis (MTCC441), E. coli (MTCC40), K. pneumoniae (MTCC3384), P.mirabilis (MTCC425), P.aeruginosa (MTCC741). The in vitro anti-bacterial activity was performed by agar disc diffusion and agar well diffusion method. P. mirabilis was the most resistant bacterium while S. aureus was the most susceptible bacteria. Amongst the plant species studied, Terminalia chebula showed best antibacterial activity.