KAVITHA ALLI AND LAKSHMI NARASU MANGAMOORI
Abstract
Holoptelea integrifolia, a large spreading glabrous tree belonging to the family of ulmaceae is widely used in traditional medicine for treatment of cancer, gastritis, diabetes, wound healing and is known to possess many phytochemicals. The nature of phytochemicals present in the stem, leaf and roots were analyzed with different solvents using GC-MS analysis and evaluated for antimicrobial activity. The antimicrobial activity of these extracts were checked against a range of gram positive and gram negative pathogens using agar well diffusion method. The minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration was determined by two-fold broth dilution method and compared against the standard antibiotic chloramphenicol. The antimicrobial activities were comparable to those obtained with standard antibiotics. Root extracts had exhibited highest antimicrobial activity followed by stem and leaves. Acetone extracts of root and ethyl acetate extract of stem had exhibited good activity against the pathogens tested. The GC-MS analysis also revealed phenols, carboxylic acids, esters and other phytochemical components for Holoptelea integrifolia, which assured that it has high antimicrobial activity against pathogens. This study clearly demonstrates that Holoptelea integrifolia has good antimicrobial properties and the root has better antimicrobial properties than leaves and stem. All extracts except the aqueous extract had significant broad-spectrum inhibitory activity. Our study is the first to present the evidence of better antimicrobial properties of root over stem and leaves.