ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Open Access
M. Aparna1 and V. Gayathri2
1Department of Microbiology, Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai – 600 008, Tamil Nadu, India.
2Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology, Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai – 600 008, Tamil Nadu, India.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2018;12(3):1607-1615
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.12.3.67 | © The Author(s). 2018
Received: 13/07/2018 | Accepted: 25/08/2018 | Published: 30/09/2018
Abstract

The present study aimed to formulate a natural medicine based upon the activity of three culinary herbs, namely, Plectranthus amboinicus, Mentha piperita and Ocimum basilicum combined with natural Aloe vera gel against common bacterial skin infections. Different isolates were obtained from skin infections such as boils, folliculitis, acne, papules, rashes, pustules etc. Gram-positive cocci such as Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Streptococcus pyogenes were isolated from the samples and were identified based on preliminary tests, cultural characteristics and biochemical tests. A decoction of all the three herbs at a concentration of 100 mg/ml was prepared using three different solvents, namely, methane, acetone and water and tested against the pathogens using agar well diffusion method. Aloe vera gel was prepared and tested in combination with the three extracts to test for synergism. Results indicated that methanolic extract showed more inhibitory activity and Staphylococcus epidermidis was found to be more sensitive to the herbal extracts than the other two organisms. Thus, an effective natural medicine was prepared.

Keywords

Plectranthus amboinicus (Ajwain plant/ Mexican mint/ Indian borage/ Karpooravalli), Mentha piperita (Peppermint/ Pudina), Ocimum basilicum (Sweet Tulsi/ Thiruneetru pachilai), Aloe vera, skin infections, antimicrobial activity, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae

Article Metrics

Article View: 1346

Share This Article

© The Author(s) 2018. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.