Abstract

Global antibiotic resistance by bacteria is becoming an increasing public health concern and the presence of drug-resistance bacteria does not only hamper the effective treatment of infectious diseases, but also increases the cost of treatment. Therefore there is a need to develop alternate antibacterial drugs for the treatment of infectious diseases. One approach involves the search for new therapeutic agents with novel modes of action from medicinal plants. In this study antibacterial activity of aqueous and various organic solvent extracts of Seidenfia rheedii leaf were checked against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Among them, ethanolic leaf extract was found to possessed significant antibacterial activity against all the test bacteria while aqueous extract did not exhibit any activity against the same organisms. The activity was more pronounced against Bacillus cereus (12 mm), Shigella dysenteriae (9 mm) and Sterptococcus faecalis (8 mm). The results obtained from the present study suggest a new potential application of S. rheedii as an alternate source of antibiotics.

Key words: Seidenfia rheedii, drug resistance, antibacterial activity.