Sharma Veena, Singh Rashmi, Chaudhary Urmila
Achyranthes aspera is one of the important medicinal herb that possesses many therapeutic properties. The present study was aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of leaves, root, stem and inflorescence extracts (petroleum ether, benzene, chloroform, ethyl acetate, ethanol and aqueous extracts) of A. aspera against various pathogenic strains of bacteria and fungi which were Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Shigella flexineri, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aspergillus niger, Fusarium oxysporum and Trichoderma viridae. The in vitro antibacterial and antifungal activity were performed by Disc diffusion method by taking different concentrations of various extracts. It was found that all extracts of leaves and inflorescence parts of A. aspera showed high antibacterial activity against all bacterial strains in comparison to root and stem extracts. Root extracts possess very low activity for bacterial strains in comparison to stem. Similarly, all extracts of all parts of A. aspera showed moderate antifungal activity against F. oxysporum but too meager activity against of T. viridae and A. niger.
