A review on antimicrobial efficacy of some traditional medicinal plants in Tamilnadu

MUNUSWAMY HEMALATHA, Thirunavukkarasu Thirumalai, Rajamani Saranya, Erusan Kuppan Elumalai, Ernest David*

1Department of Biotechnology, Thiruvalluvar University, Serkadu, Vellore-632115

2Post graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Physiology wing, Voorhees College, Vellore - 632001. Tamilnadu, India

A review on antimicrobial efficacy of some traditional medicinal plants in Tamilnadu

MUNUSWAMY HEMALATHA1, Thirunavukkarasu Thirumalai2, Rajamani Saranya1, Erusan Kuppan Elumalai2, Ernest David1*

1Department of Biotechnology, Thiruvalluvar University, Serkadu, Vellore-632115

2Post graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Physiology wing, Voorhees College, Vellore - 632001. Tamilnadu, India

Medicinal plants

Flavonoids

Fungi

Antimicrobial activity

Infectious diseases are one of the major problems in developing as well as developed countries. Traditional medicinal plants are widely used to treat the microbial diseases due to their rich source of antimicrobial activity and less cost. The different plant parts such as seed, fruit, root, bark, stem, leaf and even the whole plant were extracted using different solvents like ethanol, methanol, chloroform, acetone, petroleum ether, alcohol, and ethyl acetate. These extracts were tested by diffusion method against gram positive, gram negative bacteria and fungi to assess their antimicrobial activity. This review provides a lucid data of nearly 70 traditional medicinal plants with antimicrobial activity and this would open up the scope for further analysis of medicinal plant extracts to develop effective antimicrobial drugs.

1. Introduction

Plants produce a diverse range of bioactive molecules, making them rich source of different types of medicines. Most of the drugs today are obtained from natural sources or semi synthetic derivatives of natural products used in the traditional systems of medicine[1]. Thus it is a logical approach in drug discovery to screen traditional natural products. Approximately 20% of the plants found in the world have been submitted to pharmaceutical or biological test and a sustainable number of new antibiotics introduced in the market are obtained from natural or semi synthetic resources[2].

Medicinal plants are finding their way into pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and neutraceuticals. In pharmaceutical field medicinal plants are mostly used for the wide range of substances present in plants which have been used to treat chronic as well asinfectious diseases[3]. Long before mankind discovered the existence of microbes, the idea that certain plants had healing potential, indeed, that they contained what we would currently characterize as antimicrobial principles, was well accepted. Since antiquity, man has used plants to treat common infectious diseases and some of these traditional medicines are still included as part of the habitual treatment of various maladies[4].

The drugs already in use to treat infectious disease are of concern because drug safety remains an enormous global issue. Most of the synthetic drugs cause side effects and also most of the microbes developed resistant against the synthetic drugs[5]. To alleviate this problem, antimicrobial compounds from potential plants should be explored. These drugs from plants are less toxic, side effects are scanty and also cost effective. They are effective in the treatment of infectious diseases while simultaneously mitigating many of the side effects that are often associated with synthetic antimicrobials[6].

According to World Health Organization (WHO) medicinal plants would be the best source to obtain a variety of drugs[7]. Several plant species are usedby many ethnic groups for the treatment of various ailments ranging from minor infections to dysentery, skin diseases, asthma, malaria and a horde of other indications[8]. Plant based antimicrobials represent a vast untapped source of medicines and further exploration of plant antimicrobials is the need of the hour. Antimicrobials of plant origin have enormous therapeutic potential. Plant-derived antimicrobials have a long history of providing the much needed novel therapeutics[9]. Plants constantly interact with the rapidly changing and potentially damaging external environmental factors. Being organisms devoid of mobility, plants have evolved elaborate alternative defense strategies, which involve an enormous variety of chemical metabolites as tools to overcome stress conditions.

The ability of plants to carry out combinatorial chemistry by mixing, matching and evolving the gene products required for secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways, creates an unlimited pool of chemical compounds, which humans have exploited to their benefit. The use of plants by humans in both traditional and modern medicinal systems, therefore, largely exploits this principle[10]. The current review supports the updated systemic information on the use of herbal medicines and their chemical constituents for antimicrobial activity. We selected pre-reviewed papers on herbal medicines and their phytochemicals activity shown on scientific database Medline, Scopus, Science direct, Springer link, Wiley, Oxford journal and Google scholar. The following keywords were used to search for the literature inside the databases are phytochemicals, plant extract, natural product and antimicrobial. However, we excluded the papers on the antimicrobial effects of derivatives from herbal compound.

2. Traditional medicinal plants used in Tamilnadu

Tamilnadu is one of the most botanized areas of South India. A vast knowledge regarding how to use the plants against different illness may be expected to be accumulated in area where the use of plant still of great importance. The medicinal properties of those plants were studied by several workers in Tamilnadu.

It is very important to document the information about the medicinal plants from traditional healers to protect the knowledge of plant usage, because the younger generation is not interested to carry on the traditional knowledge. In Table 1 many medicinal plants are given, which are used by traditional healers for their antimicrobial properties. Hereby, the mentioned plants are taken from references which are already included in ethnobotanical surveys[11-17]. This paper reviews specifically about the plants having antimicrobial properties.

The increasing interest on traditional ethnomedicine may lead to discovery of novel therapeutic agent. Since, plant contains potential antimicrobial components that may be useful for evolution of pharmaceutical for the therapy of ailments.

Plants with possible antimicrobial activity should be tested against some microbes to confirm the activity. Researchers are increasingly turning their attention to folk medicine looking for new leads to develop better drugs against cancer, as well as viral and microbial infections. The activity of plant extracts on bacteria and fungi has been studied by a very large number of researchers in different place of the world. The specific plants to be used and the methods of application for particular ailments were passed down through oral tradition. Plants with possible antimicrobial activity should be tested against some microbes to confirm the activity[12]. Table 2 comprise the details of plants having antimicrobial properties, which are scientifically tested.

3. Bioactive compounds

The medicinal value of plants lies in some chemical substances that produce a definite physiological action on the human body and these chemical substances are called phytochemicals. These phytochemicals were used to cure the disease in herbal and homeopathic medicines[18]. These are non-nutritive substances, have protective or disease preventive property[19]. There arises a need and therefore to screen medicinal plants for bioactive compounds as a basis for further pharmacological studies. With advances in phytochemical techniques, several active principles of many medicinal plants have been isolated and introduced as valuable drug in modern systems of medicine.

The most important of these bioactive compounds are alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins and phenolic compounds[20]. These are the important raw materials for drug production[21]. Most plants contain several compounds with antimicrobial properties for protection against aggressor agents, especially microorganisms[22]. Table 3 comprise the details of bioactive compounds isolated from medicinal plants.

4. Conclusion

This review suggests that the 70 medicinal plants posses compounds with antimicrobial propertieswhich could be used as antimicrobial agents. Also it is the most useful for scientists, research scholars and scientific companies to carry out further studies on isolation and identification of active compounds that can be formulated into antimicrobial drugs.

Table 1Medicinal plants used for the treatment of antimicrobial disease.

Table 3Bioactive compounds obtained from medicinal plants.

Conflict of interest statement

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to Department of Biotechnology, Thiruvalluvar University, Vellore, Tamilnadu, for providing facilities during preparation of this review article.

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14 December 2012

*Corresponding author: Dr. Ernest David, Professor and Head, Department of Biotechnology, Thiruvalluvar University, Serkadu, Vellore-632115.

Tel: +91-9345300236

E-mail: ernestdavid2002@yahoo.com

ARTICLE INFO

Article history:

Received in revised form 15 January 2013

Accepted 15 March 2013

Available online 20 June 2013