Original Research Article
Year: 2018 | Month: January | Volume: 8 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 49-53
In Vitro Evaluation of the Anticandidal Activity of Selected Medicinal Plant Extracts
Kavitha. M. K1, Dr. Arun. B2
1Research Scholar, Dept. of Medical Microbiology, School of Health Sciences, Kannur University, Kerala.
2Head of the Department, School of Health Sciences, Kannur University. Kerala. India.
Corresponding Author: Kavitha. M. K
ABSTRACT
Candidiasis is one of the most prevalent and important opportunistic fungal infections caused by Candida species like Candida albicans, C. glabrata, and C. krusei. Suspected Candida infections are usually treated with amphotericin B, flucytosine, fluconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole and echinocandins. Potential risk of emergence of azole resistant strains of Candida isolates warrants careful selection of an antifungal drug for therapy. Medicinal plants possess activity against infectious agents like bacteria, virus and fungi. The objective of this study is to evaluate the in vitro activity of common Indian medicinal plants like Aloe vera, neem and tulsi leaves against Candida sp. isolates obtained from clinical samples. The clinical samples collected include nail scrapings, skin scrapings, vaginal swabs and oral swab. In the laboratory, the samples were cultured and Candida sp. were isolated and identified. Antifungal Disk Diffusion Susceptibility Testing was performed. Aqueous and alcoholic extracts of the medicinal plants were prepared and Minimum Inhibitory Concentration was determined against Candida sp. The overall number of drug resistant Candida isolates was found to be 35 out of 180 isolates, which gives the overall resistant strains as 19 % and all the resistant isolates were of C. tropicalis only. In conclusion, it can be shown that alcoholic extracts of Aloe vera leaves have more anticandidal activity followed by the aqueous extract. Alcoholic extract of neem leaves also have shown similar effect on Candida sp.
Key words: Candida sp., antifungal drugs, Disk Diffusion Susceptibility Testing, medicinal plants, broth microdilution, Minimum Inhibitory Concentration.