Antimicrobial activities of the leaves and roots of Elaeagnus umbellata Thunb

¹Fiaz Aziz Minhas, ¹Habib-ur-Rehaman, ¹Ansar Yasin, ¹Zahid Iqbal Awan and ²Muhammad Altaf Hussain

¹Department of Chemistry, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Muzaffarabad-13100, Pakistan.

²Department of Botany, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Muzaffarabad-13100, Pakistan.

Abstract

The leaves and root of Elaeagnus umbellata (Elaeagnaceae) were extracted successively with various organic solvents and water. These crude extracts were evaluated for antimicrobial activities against three gram positive bacteria, five gram negative bacteria, one yeast and one fungus by using disc diffusion method. The acetone, petroleum  ether, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of leaves and roots of the plant exhibited prominent activities while chloroform, ethanol extracts showed moderate activity and water extract showed no activity against all the tested bacteria. Ethanolic and methanolic extracts also showed considerable activity against fungus and yeast. The root extracts of the plant were found more active against the microorganisms.

Key words: E. umbellata, extracts, fungi, yeast, antibiotic discs.