Antifungal Activity of Tamarix aphylla (L.) Karst. Stem-bark Extract Against Some Pathogenic Fungi

Abstract

The largest identified, Tamarix aphylla (L.) Karst. belonging to family Tamaricaceae is traditionally an important plant used to cure various ailments. Three concentrations of crude ethanolic extracts 2000 ppm, 1000 ppm and 500 ppm were tested against six pathogenic fungi: Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Fusarium oxysporum, Penicillium notatum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae using five different solvents: acetone, chloroform, distilled water (DW), ethanol and methanol. Percent inhibition in growth of fungi was found to be dose dependent. The standard antifungal synthetic drug, Terbinafine, was used in different concentrations mixed with distilled water against different test fungi. Terbinafine completely controlled the growth of A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. niger, F. oxysporum, P. notatum and S. cerevisiae with the concentrations of 650.58, 721.00, 701.15, 591.00, 600.58 and 800.58 (g/ml of PDA medium), respectively. Chloroform was considered to be the most effective solvent preventing 97.680.58% growth of F. oxysporum, 9.370.33% in A. niger , 92.683.33% in S. cerevisiae, 91.462.08% in A. fumigatus , 88.480.88% in A. flavus and 87.951.15% in P. notatum. Statistically, the results were compared with negative control and most of the results were found to be highly significant (p?0.000). Overall, our results suggest that T. aphylla stem-bark extract illustrated maximum percent inhibition with chloroform followed by ethanol, acetone, methanol and distilled water.