Bio-efficacy of Dioscorea pentaphylla from Midmid-Western Ghats, India

Antibacterial and antifungal activity of crude extracts of medicinally important and traditionally used yam plant, Dioscorea pentaphylla, from mid-Western Ghats was evaluated against 27 bacterial and 5 fungal clinical strains collected of the patients from infectious sources. The clinical strains belonging to their respective species showed concentration-dependent susceptibility toward crude petroleum ether extract, chloroform extract and methanol extract at 100 μg/100 μl. The extracts exhibited predominant antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC-20852), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC-29737) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (MTCC-618), respectively, and five clinically isolated pathogenic fungi, Trichophyton rubrum, Microsporum gypseum, Tricophyton tonsurans, Microsporum audouini, and Candida albicans, with antibacterial drug ciprofloxacin and antifungal drug fluconozole (50 μg/100 μl) as standards. Out of the three extracts, ethanol extracts possessed better minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against all the bacterial strains. All the three extracts showed significant activity against all the five fungal pathogen strains. The results are promising and support the traditional use of D. pentaphylla for the treatment of bacterial and fungal infections.