Antimicrobial activities and mineral profile of selected wild plant Linum usitatissimum in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

The current study was conducted to investigate the possible potential of Linum usitatissimum in the removal of various human ailments and its mineral profile, as widely distributed in different areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The preliminary analytical investigation is to confirm the antimicrobial significance of L. usitatissimum, due to the presence of certain bioactive compounds. It was observed that L. usitatissimum exhibit broad spectrum activity against pathogenic bacterial strains were Agrobacterium tumefaciens sp., Bacillus subtilis sp., Clavibacterm ichiganensis sp., Escherichia coli sp., Staphylococcus aureus sp. and Xanthomonas campestris sp. While fungal strains including, viz: Aspergillus flavus sp., Aspergillus niger sp., Trichoderma harzianum sp.,Fusarium oxysporum sp., and Paecilomyces sp. Among all the bacterial strains highest inhibitory zone was recorded against B. subtillis (60.71%) followed by S. aureus (48.14%) and E. coli (44.0%) whereas no activity was observed against A. tumefaciens, C. michiganensis and X. compestris. Among all the fungal isolates highest inhibitory zone was observed against T. harzianum (76.0%) as compared to F. oxysporum (65.21%) and A. niger (57.89%) while A. flavus and Paecilomyces sp., showed complete resistance. The results showed that elemental composition of L. usitatissimum contain significant amount of carbon (63.39%) followed by oxygen (33.90%), silicon (0.45%), potassium (0.44%), calcium (0.36%), sodium (0.30%), magnesium (0.25%), sulfur (0.24%), phosphorus (0.21%), chlorine (1.9%), iron (0.18%) and aluminum (0.15%). It was concluded from the results the said plant exhibits promising antimicrobial activity and possess sufficient amount of minerals therefore it should be exploited in traditional health care medicine for the treatment of various ailments.