Phytochemical and Antimicrobial Activity of Fumes and Powder Extracts of Tinospora cordifolia

Abstract

Herbal medicines have a long therapeutic history and are still serving many of the health needs of a large population of the world. However, the quality control and quality assurance still remains a challenge because of the high variability of chemical components involved. T. cordifolia is commonly referred to as Amrita or Guduchi. All the parts of the plant are immensely useful due to the presence of different secondary metabolites. We aimed to investigate the qualitative and quantitative (carbohydrate and poly-phenolic compound) analysis of secondary metabolites present in extracts of Tinospora cordifolia powder and its herbal fume (generated from Yagya), followed by the study of its antimicrobial activity against E. coli and P. aeruginosa. The present study's powder and fume cocktail (hexane, ethyl-ether and methanol) extracts (10 mg/ml) showed 30 mm and 21.67 mm Zone of inhibition against E.coli respectively indicating equivalent efficiency of herbal fumes. Similarly, fumes contained all secondary metabolites qualitatively to that of powder extract. In addition, carbohydrate and poly-phenolic compound present in the fume extracts (0.277 mg/g and 0.29mg/g), were equivalent or higher than powder extracts (0.131 mg/g and 0.26mg/g) indicating Tinospora cordifolia's fume holistic utility.