Antimicrobial evaluation of plants commonly used in the management of psychosis opportunistic infections

Abstract

Antimicrobial activities of four medicinal plant extracts were evaluated against five bacterial strains and two fungal strains using the agar diffusion method. The ethnomedicinal plants; Rauvolfia vomitoria Afzel. (Apocynaceae); Xylopia aethiopica (Don.) A. Rich. (Annonaceae); Aframomum melegueta (Rose- K. Schum (Zingiberaceae) andPiper guineense Schum. and Thonn. (Piperaceae) used were parts of the recipes collected in a field survey of medicinal plants commonly used in folk medicine in the treatment of psychotic disorder. The anti-microbial activity of crude extracts of the plants showed that the methanol extracts demonstrated higher activity against the bacteria used compared with the n-hexane extracts except fori guineense and A melegueta which showed otherwise. None of the n-hexane extracts showed activity against C. albicans and A. niger. However, methanol extracts of R. vomitoria, X. aethiopica, A. melegueta showed activity against C. albicans and A. niger. The phytochemical analysis of R. vomitoria roots revealed the presence of alkaloids, saponins, cardiac glycosides but the absence of tannins, cyanogenetic glycosides and anthraquinones. X. aethiopica bark revealed presence of alkaloids, saponins, tannins but absence of cyanogenetic glycosides and anthraquinones. A. melegueta seeds revealed presence of alkaloids and saponins but absence of tannins, cyanogenetic glycosides, cardiac glycosides and anthraquinones. The antimicrobial activities demonstrated by the crude extracts of these plants offer a scientific basis for the traditional use of these plants in treatment of opportunistic infections that come with psychotic disorder. © 2011 Asian Network for Scientific Information.