Screening of certain medicinal plants from India for their anti-quorum sensing activity

Discovery of quorum sensing (QS) system to coordinate virulence and biofilm formation in bacterial pathogens has triggered search for safe, stable and non-toxic anti-QS compounds from natural products. Ethanolic extracts of 24 Indian medicinal plants were tested by agar well and disc diffusion assay for anti-QS activity using Chromobacterium violaceum (CV12472 and CVO26) reporter strains. AHL from C. violaceum CV31532 was isolated and partially purified for its use in CVO26 based bioassay. Effect on swarming-motility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1) was also recorded at sub-MIC concentrations of extracts. Of the 24 medicinal plants screened Hemidesmus indicus (L.) Schult (root), Holarrhena antidysenterica (Roth) A.DC. (bark), Mangifera indica L. (seed) Punica granatum L. (pericarp) and Psoralea corylifolia L. (seed) demonstrated varying level of inhibition of violacein production in the reporter strains. Moreover, a significant reduction in swarms was recorded over control. The inhibition of violacein production and swarming motility may be due to direct or indirect interference on QS by active constituents or the interactive effect of different phytocompounds present in the extracts. These plant extracts may be selected for activity guided fractionation to identify and characterize the active principle.