ABSTRACT:
The alarming incidence of bacterial resistance even in regions with improved healthcare systems has accelerated the need to search for alternative antibacterial therapies. Considering this, hexane, ethanol, aqueous, methanol and chloroform leaf extract of Daturainoxiawerescreened for their antibacterial activity against the clinical strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli isolated from blood, urine and pus. Agar well diffusion assay was employed to detect inhibitory activity of the plant. Ethanolic extract was found most effective among all the tested extracts. The extract showed greater inhibitory activity against the strains of Staphylococcus aureus. Ethanolicextract was further subjected for fractionation through column chromatography. Different isolated fractions were again screened for their antibacterial activity against the strains of Staphylococcus aureus. All the fractions showed inhibitory activity, of which fraction 4 was found effective against all the tested strains. Present study also revealed that, both gram negative and gram positive bacterial isolates from urine samples were more inhibited by the ethanolic extract than the isolates from pus and blood samples. Further studies are needed to explore theantibacterial activity of this ethanolic extract in various urinary tract infections, which presently require long term treatment with synthetic antibiotics.