Phytochemical, Antioxidant, Antibacterial and Antifungal Investigations of Thuja orientalis Cone

Background of the Study: Thuja orientalis L. is an indigenous medicinal plant belonging to family Cupressaceae found in Darjeeling Himalayan region, Dooars and Tarai region of India. The plant cone has been used traditionally as medicine to treat various diseases, like bronchitis, bacterial skin infection, osteoarthritis, trigeminal neuralgia. Aim: The aim of the present study is to evaluate the plant cone for phytochemical constinuents, and in vitro antioxidant, and antimicrobial properties. Place and Duration of Study: All the experiments were done in the Department of Biotechnology, University of North Bengal, Darjeeling, West Bengal, 734013, India. Methodology: Methanolic extract of T. orientalis cone was analyzed for phytochemicals by various biochemical methods. Antioxidant properties were analyzed by in vitro assays of DPPH, ABTS, NO and H2O2 scavenging. Antibacterial property was analyzed by agar well diffusion method and antifungal assay was monitored by radial growth bioassay. Results: Methanolic extract of T. orientalis cone contained flavonoid, phenol, saponin, tannin, terpenoid and alkaloid. The extract showed significant in-vitro antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. Conclusions: The study revealed that T. orientalis cone has potential as source of antioxidant, antibacterial and antifungal agents. Our further study is directed towards the isolation, and characterization of active compound from methanolic extract and evaluation of its potentiality against high blood sugar.

Evaluation of the antimicrobial activity of three medicinal plants of South India

The present study was carried out to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of the crude methanolic extracts of Memecylon malabaricum Clarke. (leaves), Cochlospermum religiosum Linn. (leaves and flowers) and Andrographis serpyllifolia Vahl. (leaves) using the standard disc diffusion assay against eight strains of bacterial species, viz., Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, Enterobacter aerogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. malvacearum, Bacillus cereus and Micrococcus sp. The extracts of the plants at a concentration of 1.25 mg/disc showed minimum to moderate activity against both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria indicating a broad spectrum activity. A preliminary phytochemical screening was conducted on the selected plant extracts using standard qualitative procedures that revealed the presence of several secondary metabolites. The extracts failed to show antioxidant activity by reducing power assay. The result indicates the potential usefulness of these plants especially Memecylon malabaricum and Cochlospermum religiosum, in treating microbial infections in humans and plants and justifies the need for further investigations and characterization of the bioactive compounds present in the methanolic extracts of the plants.

Ganglion cyst of the proximal tibiofibular joint causing foot drop-diagnostic problem of differentiating from neuritic leprosy.

A six-year old boy presented with pain around the knee joint and abnormal gait of one month duration. There was no history of hypopigmented anaesthetic patches, neuritis or family history of leprosy. Clinical examination revealed a localized cystic swelling of 1 x 1 cm in size in the region of left common peroneal nerve, with sensory loss on the lateral aspect of the left leg which was mistaken for a nerve abscess.

Comparison of thermostable phosphatase and proteases from thermophilically disposed transition species and thermophilic actinomycetes.

Thermoactinomycetes vulgaris is a thermophilic actinomycetes growing optimally at 50 degrees C and Streptomyces albus, S. coelicolor, S. fasciculus and S. olivochromogenes are thermophilically disposed transition species of actinomycetes, which have optimum biomass at 40 degrees C. The acid/alkaline phosphatase and acid/alkaline/neutral protease enzyme from Streptomycetes species showed enzyme activity up to 90 degrees C. In comparison to phosphatases and proteases from T. vulgaris it was concluded that these thermophilically disposed transition species showed macromolecular thermostability i.e. thermostable enzymes and protein.