A Review on Malaysian Plants Used for Screening of Antimicrobial Activity
Mohammed Arifullah *
Faculty of Agrobased Industry, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Jeli Campus, Locked bag-100, 17600, Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia.
Paritala Vikram
Faculty of Agrobased Industry, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Jeli Campus, Locked bag-100, 17600, Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia.
Kishore Kumar Chiruvella
Department of Molecular Biosciences, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Munvar Miya Shaik
Human Genome Centre, School of Medical Sciences, University Sains Malaysia, 16150 Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia.
Ilfah Husna B. Abdullah Ripain
Faculty of Agrobased Industry, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Jeli Campus, Locked bag-100, 17600, Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Medicinal plants have very high potential as antimicrobial drugs for treating various human diseases. Although a number of plants have been screened, the search for antimicrobial substances from plants is continued as better and safer drugs to combat bacterial and fungal infections are still needed. Here, we attempted to summarize the antibacterial and antifungal properties of Malaysian medicinal plant extracts against a diverse range of organisms evaluated by disc diffusion and agar well diffusion techniques. Altogether, we provide information on a total of 93 medicinal plants used traditionally in Malaysia for antimicrobial screening during the last 4 years. We believe this combination of insights would provide information of medicinal plants (extracts) containing various secondary metabolites which are effective in controlling infectious diseases. This review also might be of great interest for researchers in isolation and separation of bioactive compounds existing in plant extracts by purification methods.
Keywords: Medicinal plants, antimicrobial agents, bacteria, fungi, disc diffusion, agar well diffusion