Antimicrobial Activity of Selected Medicinal Plants from a Sub-Saharan African Country against Bacterial Pathogens from Post-Operative Wound Infections

Abstract

Background: Globally, the application of medicinal plants in the management of acute and chronic wounds can be considered a common occurrence in most traditional medicine practices. In view of this, many plants in the tropical and subtropical regions have been screened for their wound-healing activities. Consequently, plants having antimicrobial activity against multidrug-resistant (MD-R) pathogens can be considered great assets. Therefore, this study evaluated ethanolic and aqueous extracts of five medicinal plants (Psidium guajava, Myrianthus arboreus, Alchornea cordifolia, Momordica charantia, and Justicia flava) for their antimicrobial activities against MD-R bacterial pathogens isolated from post-operative wounds; Methods: This involved the aqueous and ethanolic extraction of the selected medicinal plants. Preliminary phytochemical constituents of the plants were examined. The agar well diffusion method was then used to determine the antibacterial activity of the leaves against reference strains (Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Salmonella typhi ATCC 19430, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853 and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, and a Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain) as well as the MDR clinical isolates (E. coli, P. aeruginosa, S. aureus and CoNS) from the wounds; Results: The preliminary phytochemical analysis of the leaves showed the presence of saponins, phenolics, and reducing sugars in almost all the plants tested. All plant extracts were observed to have some antimicrobial activity against at least one reference strain. For the clinical MDR isolates, A. cordifolia from this study showed highest inhibition to growth of all bacteria used. Activity of J. flava against S. aureus was highest as compared to that of E.coli and P. aeruginosa. Similar observation was made for M. arboreus, P. guajava and M. charantia where the highest activity was observed against S. aureus; Conclusion: This study has mainly shown that P. guajava, M. arboreus, A. cordifolia, M. charantia, and J. flava exhibits antimicrobial activities against MD-R bacterial pathogens isolated from post-operative wounds. Also, these plants has bioactive phytochemical compounds with potential medicinal values for the treatment of numerous infections. Therefore, these plants may be helpful in the management of acute and chronic wounds, especially in traditional medicine practices.

Molecular Detection, Serotyping, and Antibiotic Resistance of Shiga Toxigenic Escherichia coli Isolated from She-Camels and In-Contact Humans in Egypt

“…On the other hand, Al-Ajmi et al [ 43 ] stated that 100% of STEC isolates were susceptible to Ciprofloxacin and 84% for Amoxicillin. The relatively little discovery of multiple drug-resistant human isolates to many antibiotics in this study may be due to the dependence of people in this region on traditional methods, which may have a prominent effect on maintaining human health [ 32 , 33 ].…”

“…Even if the resistance rates to antibiotics are relatively low, it can be dangerous due to the possibility of the transmission and spread of resistance genes between strains [ 29 ]. The nomadic nature of this region and the reliance on medicinal plants as natural antibacterial agents may have been an influential factor in the discovery of low levels of multi-antibiotic resistance [ 6 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. This may have a positive impact on both veterinary and public health [ 33 ].…”

GC-MS Analysis and Antimicrobial Assessment of Syzygium cumini (L.) Skeels Seed Ethanol Extract

“…These plants are a repository of phytochemicals in the form of secondary metabolites, such as steroids, phenols, tannins, terpenoids, alkaloids, and flavonoids, which have established antimicrobial properties and could be developed for treatment of infectious diseases [17]. Innumerable studies worldwide have reported the antimicrobial potency of medicinal plants with a handful focussed on expounding the antimicrobial potency of isolated compounds [18,8,19,20,21,22,23].…”

Preliminary phytochemical analysis, antibacterial and anti-biofilm activities of Curcuma zedoaria (Christm.) Roscoe extracts

“…The antimicrobial properties of plants have been investigated in numerous studies around the world. Many studies have examined these as alternative therapies due to their biological activities like antimicrobial, antiinflammatory, and antioxidant properties (Dosoky and Setzer, 2018;Owusu et al, 2021). These properties are due to secondary metabolites of the plants, such as phenolics, flavonoids, tannins, steroids, essential oils, etc.…”