Preliminary Phytochemical Screening and Antibacterial Studies of Leaf Extract of Solanum trilobatum Linn

Solanum trilobatum Linn. is extensively used in Indian traditional and folklore medicines to cure various human ailments. The preliminary phytochemical screening of the leaves revealed the presence of Sugar, Protein, Alkaloids, Flavonoids, Saponins, Tannins, Cardiac glycoside, Terpenoids and Lipids. In vitro antibacterial studies on the leaf extracts were carried out on eight medically important bacterial strains, including Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Streptococccus pyrogens, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumonia, Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris which were procured from Department of Microbiology, RVS Hospital, Sulur,Coimbatore, Tamilnadu., using agar disc diffusion method. The bacterial strains were exposed to the following four different concentrations of extracts: 25mg/ml, 10mg/ml and 5mg/ml solvent. The results of our antibacterial assay revealed that the extract showed good inhibitory activity against all the tested pathogens compared with standard antibiotics like streptomycin. The inhibitory activity was found to be dose dependent.