Investigation of Antimicrobial Activity of Aloe vera and it’s Application
P. Joyruth
*
Department of Microbiology, The American College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Sukirtha
PG and Research Department of Microbiology, Hindusthan College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
P. Kalaimathy
Department of Microbiology, The American College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Aloe vera consists of about 420 species, and has been used as a traditional medicine for about 3000 years. The preliminary phytochemical screening of the aloe vera gel powder revealed the presence of steroids, phenolics, glycosides, alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins and tannins. Invitro antibacterial studies on the leaf extract were carried out on medically important bacterial strains, including Bacillus subtilis, Candida albicans using agar disc diffusion method. The bacterial strains were exposed to the following four different concentrations of extracts: 25µl, 50 µl, 75 µl and 100 µl. The result of our antibacterial assay revealed that the extract showed good inhibitory activity against all the tested pathogens.
Keywords: Aloe barbadensis miller, phytochemical screening, disc diffusion, antibacterial, antidiabetic activity