ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF MIMOSA PUDICA THORNS

Abstract

Traditional medicinal plants play an important role in maintaining the human health. One such traditional plant is Mimosa Pudica, also known as humble plant but acts as antimicrobial agent. Ethanolic and aqueous extracts of Mimosa pudica thorns were assessed for preliminary phytochemical analysis. Also the extracts were evaluated for the antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi by agar well diffusion method. The microorganisms used in the study were Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Bacillus cereus and Candida albicans. The plant extracts were taken in various concentrations (25, 50, 75and100 mg/well) and the standards used for antibacterial and antifungal activity were Streptomycin and Clotrimazole respectively. The phytochemical screening revealed flavonoids, saponins, glycosides, alkaloids, terpenoids and coumarins in both ethanolic and aqueous thorn extracts of Mimosa pudica. Escherichia coli showed maximum zone of clearance in both the ethanolic and aqueous thorns extracts of Mimosa pudica at higher concentrations. Amongst the two extracts, the results clearly indicate that the aqueous thorn extracts of Mimosa pudica exhibited highest zone of inhibition of 24.2±0.34mm against the bacteria Escherichia coli and 18.1±0.17mm against the fungi Candida albicans at 100µg/well. Therefore the present study concludes that the phytoconstituents might have contributed the antimicrobial activity and further studies can be made on the plant derived antimicrobials.