In-vitro antimicrobial screening with phytochemical study of Plumbago zeylanica L. collected from two regions of Eastern Himalayas- A comparative study

Abstract

Geographical variation plays an important role in the phytoconstituents of the plant species. The present study was an investigation of phytochemical and antimicrobial properties of a same species of plant Plumbago zeylanica L. collected from two different Eastern Himalayan regions (Sikkim and Assam). The solvent used for extraction of plants were chloroform, acetone and ethanol. Preliminary phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, carbohydrates, triterpenoids, gum, mucilage, fatty acids, protein and saponine in both region plants. The qualitative phytochemical study revealed important information about the different phytoconstituents content present in the various extracts of same plant collected from two different regions. The in-vitro antimicrobial evaluation was carried out by agar disc diffusion method and it was performed on microbial strains like gram negative species Salmonella typhi and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and gram positive bacteria Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus . Standard antibiotic Amoxicillin was used as a reference drug to screen the antimicrobial properties of extracts. Ethanolic extract exerted the maximum activity in both regions plants. The ethanol extracts of both region plants showed significant antibacterial activity against all the organisms, while chloroform and acetone fractions showed moderate activity. As this was a comparative study so, the interesting finding was that Assam plant extract was having more potency especially ethanol extract in comparison to Sikkim plant extracts. Therefore, the detail result and analysis of this study helped to distinguish the differences in characters with special attention towards antimicrobial properties of P. zeylanica L. species collected from these two Himalayan regions.