Diversity in antimicrobial activity of some medicinal plants of High Altitude area: Achyranthes aspera, Thalictrum foliolosum, Valeriana wallichii, Hedychium spicatum, Woodfordia fruticosa, Acorus calamu, Eupatorium cannabium

There is a continuous and urgent need to discover new antimicrobial compounds with diverse chemical structures and novel mechanisms of action because there has been an alarming increase in the incidence of new and reemerging infectious diseases. In recent years, drug resistance to human pathogenic bacteria has been commonly reported from all over the world. In the present scenario of emergence of multiple drug resistance to human pathogenic organisms, this has necessitated a search for new antimicrobial substances from other sources including plants. In the present study extract of seven plants from high altitude area were evaluated for antimicrobial activity against hospital isolates( bacterial and fungal) bacteria viz. Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogens, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Pseudomonas fluorescence and Fungal viz. Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Microsporum gypseum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, and Trichophyton rubrum . The in vitro antimicrobial activity was performed by agar well diffusion method. Amongst the plant species studied, Woodfordia fruticosa showed broad spectrum antimicrobial activity.

Author(s): Nishu Khera, Yogita Thakur and Aruna Bhatia*

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