Abstract

ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF FRUIT EXTRACT OF PHYLLANTHUS FRATERNUS WEBSTER: AN ETHNOMEDICINAL PLANT

Kavit Mehta and Jain B. K.*

Abstract

The antimicrobial activity of plant extract has been recognized for many years. Plants are rich in a wide variety of secondary metabolites such as tannins, terpenoids, alkaloids and flavonoids which have been found in vitro to have antimicrobial properties. These herbal products are useful to discover new agents. Phyllanthus fraternus Webster, belonging to family Euphorbiaceae is a medicinally very useful plant species used by tribal of Gujarat to cure certain diseases like asthma, cough, diarrhoea, diabetes, skin diseases and scabies. In the present study Ethanolic fruit extracts (1000 mg/10 ml) of Phyllanthus fraternus were screened against bacterial strains such as E. coli, B. megaterium, B. cereus, B. subtilis, C. glutenicum, S. aureus, S. typhi, S.typhi A, S. typhi B, P. aeruginosa and P. vulgeris by disc diffusion method. The result showed maximum antibacterial activities against B. cereus with zone of inhibition of 28 mm followed by C. glutenicum with a zone of inhibition of 27 mm and S. typhi A with zone of inhibition of 25 mm. Absolute ethanol was used as control during the experiments. This indicates that antimicrobial activities may be due to the presence of secondary metabolites. Hence, the plant can be used to discover bioactive natural products that may serve as leads in the development of new pharmaceuticals research activities. So far antibacterial work has been not carried out on Phyllanthus fraternus hence, the attempts were made to study the same.

Keywords: S.typhi, fruit extract, P. fraternus.