Antimicrobial potentials of plant extracts against drug resistant bacteria

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious and growing threat to human health. The development of new antibiotics is limited and slow. The tradition of synergy in herbal medicine is being used as a source of research ideas. The in vitro findings were that most of the research reported synergy both within plants and between plants and antibiotics. Whole plant extracts and combinations of compounds were shown to be more effective antimicrobials than isolated constituents. New sources of antimicrobial drugs need to be identified and improved strategy should be developed to combat multidrug resistance problem in pathogenic bacteria. Plant extract and phytochemicals demonstrating antimicrobial action needs to be exploited for their synergistic action between extracts and with antibiotics to exploit it in modern phytomedicine and combinational therapy. In the present study alcoholic extracts of medicinal plants were screened for their antimicrobial efficacy against drug resistant bacteria. The extracts of Hemidesmus indicus,and Carum copticum, showed promising action against one or more drug resistant bacteria with MIC ranged from 0.53 mg/ml to 7.80 mg/ml which has indicated their potential to be exploited in antimicrobial therapy and combination drug therapy after careful evaluation in vivo model.