Evaluation of antibacterial activities of some Nigerian medicinal plants against some resistant bacteria pathogens

Abstract

The search for the healing properties of plants is an ancient idea that has remained even till date. In this work, the antibacterial activity of leaf extracts of Corchorus olitorius, Pterocarpus santaliniodes, Pentaclethra macrophylla and Azadirachta indica was tested against resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella species and Streptococcus species using agar well diffusion method. The following concentrations of 100, 50, 25 and 12.5 mg/ml of aqueous, ethanol and methanol leaf extracts were used against the test organisms. Results of this study reveal that all the leaf extracts had antibacterial activity against the test organisms at various concentrations (in particular: at 100 and 50 mg/ml) but the aqueous leaf extracts had higher inhibitory effect for all of them. However, little inhibitory effect was observed with the methanol and ethanol leaf extracts. Our findings justify the therapeutic use of these plants by traditional healers in most part of Nigeria for the treatment of infections caused by these bacteria. Medicinal plants have unlimited possibilities to produce putative compounds for the development of novel drugs to curtail the upward trend in bacterial resistance, thus the need for sustained research towards this objective.

Antibacterial Activities of Pentaclethra Macrophylla and Syzygium Samarangense against Opportunistic Bacteria Pathogens

“…S. aureus (ATCC® 25923™) exhibited resistance to all extracts of both plants but was susceptible to Ciprofloxacin. Nwakaeze, et al [17] also reported a low antibacterial activity of cold-water extracts of P. macrophylla on S. aureus. The cause of resistance of S. aureus to the plant extracts could be the emergence of resistant strains via hospital infections, antibiotic abuse and plasmid exchange.…”