Assessing antimicrobial agents of Nigeria flora

Abstract

The search for new antimicrobial agents for the management of infections is of increasing interest because of the intense growing resistance of antibiotics to bacteria. Eighteen medicinal plants’ extracts, these plants belonging to different families were fractionated using different solvents with varying polarity (hexane, chloroform and methanol), with historical use against infections in a primary and secondary screening for activity against Candida albican, Aspergillus fumigatus, Crytococcus neoformans, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Vancomycin resistance enterococcus and Methicillin-resistance staphylococcus aureus in an in vitro assay. The methanol extract of leaves of Leptadenia hastata (IC50 (µg/mL) = 22.53 (MRS), 11.89 (VRE)) and chloroform extract of seeds of Parkia biglobosa (IC50 (µg/mL) = 28.25 (C. neoform.), 85.68 (VRE)) exhibited significant inhibition against the microbes. Though hexane fractions of P. biglobosa and Crotalaria mucronata show selective inhibition of IC50 (µg/mL) = 28.71 (C. neoform.) and 58.13 (C. alb) respectively. The antimicrobial nature of extracts from the seeds of P. biglobosa, leaves of B. ferruginea and T. preussi were ascertain in this study for the first time as far as we know. The positive results of these medicinal plants constitute vital reference for on-going phytoanalysis and biological studies.