Abstract

IN VITRO ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF AGERATUM CONYZOIDES L. (ASTERACEAE)

Puja Garg, Arneet Gill, and Raman K Verma

ABSTRACT

Ageratum conyzoides is a noxious weed regarded as harmful allelopath for crops. The present study was conducted in four different solvent extracts of Ageratum conyzoides (Linn.) (Asteraceae) to assess the antibacterial potential against human pathogenic bacteria under in vitro condition. The agar well diffusion method was used to test the antibacterial activity of two populations of A. conyzoides collected from Mansa district of Punjab and Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh against five human pathogenic bacteria i.e gram +ve (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus) and gram –ve (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa). In the experimental studies, the largest inhibition zones were recorded in petroleum ether and acetone extract in Mansa and Mandi populations respectively against all five human pathogenic bacteria that were comparable to standard antibiotic chloramphenicol. Moderate inhibition growth was observed in chloroform and methanol extract treated bacteria. The results obtained from this study indicated that A. conyzoides shows intraspecific variability in their antibacterial potential which may be due to environmental factors. There is need to evaluate more germplasm for application purposes and phytochemical studies.

Keywords: Ageratum conyzoides, Antibacterial activity, Agar well diffusion method, Activity index, Human Pathogenic bacteria.