PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS AND IN VITRO ANTI-BACTERIAL ACTIVITIES OF SELECTED MEDICINAL PLANTS

V. Kadirvel Murugan*, T.Arumugam, V. Tamilvannan, K. Umaarani, R. Dhamotharan and S. Ravikumar

ABSTRACT

Crude extracts from leaves, stem and root viz., five different medicinal plants namely, Abrus precatorius L., Decalepis hamiltonii Wight & Arn., Mucuna atropurpurea (Roxb.) DC., Santalum album L. and Senna tora (L.) Roxb, were examined using agar well diffusion method against some bacterial microbes namely, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus. Plant leaves were extracted using different solvents such as Aqueous, Ethanol, Methanol, Acetone, Ethyl acetate, Chloroform and Petroleum ether. Phytochemical screening of these plants was performed for constituents: Carbohydrates, Amino acids, Proteins, Vitamin, Tannins, Phenolic compounds, Flavanoids, Alkaloids, Saponins, Steroids and Glycosides. Among these different extracts, methanol extract showed more antibacterial activity and moderate recorded with aqueous, ethyl acetate and chloroform extracts. Decalepis hamiltonii showed a maximum antibacterial activity against all the tested bacterial strains than the other plants. All the bacterial strains were more susceptible to methonolic extracts than the other organic extracts. In future these plants can be subjected to isolate of the major antimicrobials constituents after pharmacological evaluation.

Keywords: Medicinal plants, Phytochemical, Antimicrobial activity, Kathiri hills.