Antimicrobial and preliminary phytochemical investigations of some traditional medicinal plants in iraqi kurdistan

Abstract

Many plants used in Kurdistan in folk medicine to treat a variety of illnesses, the following study included antimicrobial evaluation of most commonly used traditional medicinal plants with their preliminary phytochemical screening. Antimicrobial activity of different extractsfrom nineteen traditional medicinal plants (Urtica dioica, Achillea mileforum, Viola odorata, Althea officinalis, Malva parviflora, Trigonella foenum-graecum, Glycyrrhiza glabra, Plantago major, Pegunm harmala, Pimpinellaanisum, Coriandrum sativum, Ammi vinaga, Nigella sativa, Hibiscus sabdarriffa, Foneucluim vulgari, Cichorium intybus, Melissa officinalis, Thymus vulgari, and Matricaria chamomilla) were evaluated against four strains of gram negative bacteria and two strains of gram positive bacteria using agar well diffusion method, and preliminary screening for main phytochemical natural product groups had been done using standard procedures. Eight plant species (Pegunm harmala, Hibiscus sabdarriffa, Achillea mileforum, Plantago major, Matricaria chamomilla, Nigella sativa, Thymus vulgari, and Althea officinalis) were showed activity against one or more of the tested bacterial strains. The highest antimicrobial activities were for ethanolic extracts of Pegunm harmala (MIC20mg/ml) against both Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli and for Hibiscus sabdarriffa (MIC 30 mg/ml) against Pseudomonas arigenosa. Alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, condensed and hydrolysable tannins were detected in different studied plants, flavonoids in Trigonella foenum-graecum and hydrolysable tannins in Ammi vinaga were recorded for the first time. Some of the studied plants are potentially good sources of antimicrobial agents and the results support the traditional medicinal uses of plants.