1: J Ethnopharmacol. 2007 Jan 19;109(2):331-7. Epub 2006 Aug 22.

Screening for anti-infective properties of several medicinal plants of the
Mauritians flora.

Rangasamy O, Raoelison G, Rakotoniriana FE, Cheuk K, Urverg-Ratsimamanga S,
Quetin-Leclercq J, Gurib-Fakim A, Subratty AH.

Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Mauritius,
Reduit, Mauritius.

Several plants of the Mauritian flora alleged to possess anti-infective
properties were studied against different strains of pathogenic bacteria and
fungi. The grounded dried plant materials were extracted with different
extractants and screened for anti-microbial activity using the disk diffusion and
the micro-dilution techniques. Preliminary screening revealed that the methanol
extracts were most active. Salmonella enteritidis, Enterobacter cloacae and
Bacillus subtilis were the three test organisms, which were found to be
susceptible to all the crude methanolic extracts of the different plants
investigated (100% susceptibility), followed by Escherichia coli (57.1%) and
Pseudomonas aeruginosa (57.1%), and Staphylococcus aureus (28.6%). The lowest
minimum inhibitory concentration recorded for the different crude methanol
extracts against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella enteritidis,
Enterobacter cloacae, Bacillus subtilis and the mould fungus Candida albicans
were 500, 1000, 125, 250, 1000 and 125 micro g/ml, respectively. Bioautography
using Cladosporium cucumerinum revealed that dichloromethane (DCM) extracts had
the highest activity against the phytopathogenic fungus. It was also noted that
the DCM extracts of Michelia champaca and Antidesma madagascariense yielded the
maximum number of growth inhibiting compounds against Cladosporium cucumerinum.
Activity of the different crude extracts was also investigated against several
phytopathogenic filamentous fungi, Colletotrichum glocosporoides, Rhizoctonia
solani, Sclerotinia sclerotium, Guignardia sp. and Fusarium oxysporum. It was
found that crude hexane extracts as well as crude DCM extracts exhibited marked
activity against several strains of fungi, especially Colletotrichum
glocosporoides, Sclerotinia sclerotium and Guignardia sp.

PMID: 17011733 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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