ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF DIFFERENT EXTRACTS OF SIDDHA DRUG ATTATHI CHOORANAM (ATC)

Rasenthiran Sasvatha* and Manoharan A.

ABSTRACT

Attathi chooranam (ATC) is a classical Siddha herbo-mineral drug. The aim of this research was to find out the antibacterial activity of ATC against the five gram-positive, five gram-negative bacteria and anti-fungal activity of five fungi in different extracts. The ethanol extracts of 50 ℓ and 100 ℓ of ATC showed the highest antimicrobial activity against all the positive and negative tested bacteria and fungi when compared to aqueous extracts. 100 ℓ of ethanol extract of ATC has high activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria and fungi than 50 ℓ of ethanol extract. The highest anti-bacterial activity recorded 100 ℓ and 50 ℓ of ethanol in gram-negative bacteria Klebsilla pneumonia (25 mm & 22 mm), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (26 mm &18 mm) and gram-positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (24 mm & 16 mm), Streptococcus mutans (22 mm & 20 mm) which were compared with positive control of Streptomycin. All extracts of ATC have high activity against gram negative bacteria compared with gram positive bacteria. ATC extracts of 100 ℓ and 50 ℓ of ethanol exhibited potential antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger (18 mm & 14 mm) compared with positive control (fluconazole). According the 100 ℓ and 50 ℓ of aqueous extracts of ATC kept antifungal activity against Penicillium notatum (18mm & 15 mm) and Candida Albicans (15 mm & 11 mm) meanwhile activity has not been reported against Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger and Rhizopus stolonifera.

Keywords: Anti-bacterial activity, Anti-fungal activity, Attathi chooranam, Disc diffusion method.