Abstract

ANTIFUNGAL POTENTIAL OF ARGEMONE MEXICANA L

Ravi Kaushik*, Chandan Singh and Manoj Adlakha

Abstract

Medicinal plants are widely used to treat infectious diseases. Infectious diseases produced by different types of micro-organism are still the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world today. A huge number of synthetic antimicrobial agents are available in the market. These antimicrobial agents are very effective for the treatment of related disorders. However, due to the capacity of many microbes to acquire resistance to various antimicrobial therapies, their effectiveness is limited. The majority of these antimicrobials have side effects also. As a result, infectious diseases produced by the microbes pose a severe threat to worldwide public health. So there is a great need to develop natural anti-microbial agents. With reference to many of Ayurvedic literature keen interest has been developed to work on this plant. The introduction of natural antifungal agents to treat the fungal disease will be a great mile stone for the most significant public health accomplishment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antifungal potential of methanol and aqueous extracts of the leaf of Argemone mexicana. In this study aqueous and methanolic extracts were prepared from A. mexicana leaves. These extracts were tested for their antifungal activities by using the agar well diffusion method. It was observed that both aqueous and methanolic extracts of A. mexicana leaves inhibited the growth of Trichophyton rubrum, Epidermophyton floccusum, and Microsporum canis. Antifungal activity of the extract was comparable to that of ketoconezole. In this study it was observed that the leaf of A. mexicana exhibit good antifungal potential.

Keywords: Argemone mexicana; Antifungal potential; Aqueous and Methanolic extract.