Evaluation of Antibacterial Activity Methonolic Extract Prosopis Juliflora Bark

Natural products and their role in drug discovery:

Natural products are defined as the secondary metabolites and byproducts derived from natural sources such as microorganisms, plants and animals (Baker et al., 2000). Some of the natural products derived from animals include chitosan and lysozyme, from plants flavonoids, alkaloids and essential oils and from microbes penicillin, streptomycin and bleomycin (Tiwari et al., 2009). These products have been used and explored for various purposes from thousands of years. In particular, plants are being used as a source of medicine since ancient times. Ancient man discovered the medicinal plants and their curative actions by intimate monitoring the effect of specific plant on sick animal after eating a particular plant or its parts. Even nowadays plant-based medicines and formulations are used by large number of people around the globe (Bensky and Gamble, 1993). Thus, natural products are the traditional path finder compounds contributing an untold diversity of chemical structures (Strobel and Daisy, 2003). Plants have been used for centuries as remedies for human diseases and suggest a new source of biologically active molecules as antimicrobial agent. Medicinal plants represent the richest source of drugs which are used in traditional medicinal systems, nutraceuticals, modern and folk medicines, food supplements and pharmaceuticals (Hammer et al., 1999). It has been estimated that 14-28% of higher plant species are used medicinally and 74% of pharmacologically active plant derived components were discovered after following up on ethno medicinal applications of the plants.

Prosopis juliflora:

an invasive traditional medicinal plant Medicinal plants have been used as therapeutic tools to treat a number of microbial infections caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoans (Holetz et al., 2002). Furthermore, owing to the growing inefficiency of many synthetic products, unaffordable costs and collateral effects, created a great interest in medicinal plants for the discovery of new antimicrobial compounds. Thus in the present study the plant selected is Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) D.C. The plant has been used in traditional and folk medicine by its native tribes. It is an important species of genera Prosopis, commonly known as “algarroba” or “mesquite”, “Vilayati Kher” (Azhar, 1998) (Fig. 1.1). The plant is native of Mexico, South America, and Caribbean. It has invaded many parts of world including Asia, Australia and Africa by contending with native species and is considered as an important weed (Gibbon, 2005). 1.2.1. Classification Class- Dicotyledonae Order-Leguminosae Family- Mimosoideae Genus - Prosopis Species- P. juliflora (Sw.) DC.