Invitro Antibacterial Activity of Oldenlandia umbellata an Indian medicinal Plant

To find out the whether this medicinal plant has produce any antibacterial activity against any of common pathogenic organisms isolated from respiratory tract infections the whole plants (except leaves ) of crude methanolic extract of Oldenlandia umbellata were tested against the pathogenic organisms isolated from the respiratory tract infections.Oldenlandia umbellata posses antibacterial activity against both gram positive and gram negative bacteria. It was found that the methanolic extracts of roots and aerial portion (except leaves ) of Oldenlandia umbellata possessed high degree of antibacterial activity. However the leaves of this plant do not posses such activity. It has been reported that the plant Oldenlandia umbellata contains about seven Anthraquinones, of which 1-2-dihydroxy anthraquinone known as Alizarin is the most predominant. Fractionation of the methanolic extract of Oldenlandia umbellata revealed five different fractions presence of of Alizarin was observed in all the five fractions by both qualitative and quantitative estimations. This compound was found to be the active principle and was separated from the plant oldenlandia umbellata by chromatographic procdures and identified as Alizarin. The plant derived Alizarin (OU-1) and the synthetic Alizarin (SA) exhibited similar antibacterial activity.