SCREENING OF VARIOUS PLANT EXTRACTS FOR THEIR ANTI-MICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND ESTIMATION OF VARIOUS PHYTOCHEMICALS IN RESPECTIVE EXTRACTS

Abstract

India is one of the 12 mega biodiversity centers having over 45,000 plant species. In the current study, Cicer arietinum, Mentha viridis and Syzygium aromaticum were used for preparing aqueous and ethanol extracts for phytochemical analysis of the three plants. Plants are a storehouse of wide variety of secondary metabolites like cardiacglycosides, alkaloids, tannins, terpenoids, coumarins, saponins, phenols and flavonoids are rich in antioxidant activity and these plants were tested this activity. Gram positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus is mainly responsible for post-operative wound infections, toxic shock syndrome, etc while Gram negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli is present in human intestine and causes lower urinary tract infections, septicaemia, etc. These bacteria were collected from throat swab and their activity was tested on these 3-plant species and Syzygium aromaticum showed the best zone of inhibition by Staphyloccus aureus. Further the antibiotic activity of these plant species was confirmed through MTT assay and it was found that Syzygium aromaticum showed the best antibacterial results. Finally, Thin layer chromatography (TLC) was done in order to find the presence of active compounds and retardation factor was noted down which showed the presence of eugenol, genistein and quercitin. To confirm the presence of these compounds HPLC analysis was done and it was observed that Eugenol was found in Syzygium aromaticum, Genistein was found in Cicer arietinum and Quercetin was found in Mentha viridis.