Abstract

Antibiotics are an important class of pharmacological agents used for treating infections, a major cause of human morbidity and mortality. Although antibiotics were first isolated from fungi and bacteria but over the years more and more synthetic antibiotics are flowing in market. During the last two decades, the development of drug resistance as well as the appearance of undesirable side effects of certain antibiotics has lead to the search of new antimicrobial agent. There is ample of documented evidence which shows antibiotic properties in plant extracts. The present study was done to assess the antibacterial and antifungal activity of wildly growing indigenous plants. Aqueous and ethanolic extracts of different parts  of Oxalis amara, Argemone maxicana, Datura inoxia, Calatropis procera, Amranthus albus, Pithecellobium dulce, Ziziphus mauritiana, Croton bonplandianum, Cannibus sativa, Leucaena leucophela, Andographis peniculata were taken for study,against pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and fungus Candida albicans. Results were observed and calculated by their zone of inhibition after 24 h by agar plate gel diffusion method. The plants have shown strong antibacterial and antifungal activities for different microorganisms. This laboratory experiment has shown that plant extracts are effective against microbes and their active compounds can be promising agents for developing novel antibiotics, that is, green antibiotics.

Key words:  Wildly growing plants, secondary metabolites, antimicrobial activity,pathogenic bacteria, agar plate gel diffusion method, zone of inhibition.

Abbreviation

MDR-TB, Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis; XDR-TB, complete drug resistant tuberculosis; aq, aqueous; eth, ethanolic; ZOI, zone of inhibition