Abstract

EVALUATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF PTEROSPERMUM RUBIGINOSUM BARK EXTRACT

Vijeesh Govindan* and U. Srinivasa

ABSTRACT

Pterospermum rubiginosum, belonging to the family, Sterculiaceae, is a plant used in the treatment of bone fracture and its related complications, by the tribal communities living in deep interior forests. The plant, a very good potential one, is yet to be documented particularly in terms of its capacities for treating the disease and disorder conditions. The knowledge of the plant regarding its pharmacognostic and therapeutics aspects is not scientifically proven and moreover, due to the lesser availability of literature on this plant, it limits the study. The P. rubiginosum, is widely distributed on the western coast of the Indian peninsula, more focused on the western ghats’ geographical line. This plant has every chance to enter the list of endangered species as they are very vulnerable. In the present research exploration, the inhibitory effect of crude ethanolic extracts of P. rubiginosum was judged against some human pathogenic bacterial strains (gram positive and gram negative) using the agar disc diffusion method. The ethanolic extracts of the plant were found to be more or less active against almost all of the tested gram positive pathogenic strains. It was found that the extract had a good inhibition zone in gram positive (IZ= 12mm and AI= 0.55mm) whereas the gram negative bacterial strains had no inhibition at all. The ethanolic bark extract of P. rubiginosum, possessed antimicrobial activity against gram positive strains such as S. aureus and S. mutans. The minimum inhibitory concentration of the ethanolic extract was also determined on the strain S. aureus and was found to be at 250μg/mL concentration of the extract. From the present investigational approach, it could be suggested that the plant used for the study could be beneficial for the development of nutraceuticals and also for the preparation of potent antibacterial agents that can be employed in the treatment of various diseases affecting humans and also keep away from the complications that may arise due to such microorganisms.

Keywords: Antibacterial activity, Endangered species, Ethanolic extracts.