BACKGROUND

Medicinal plants have been used as traditional treatments for various human diseases for many years and they are still widely practiced throughout the world. Due to the long history of the practice, medicinal plants have become an integral part of the Ethiopian culture. This study aimed to evaluate the antibacterial activities of Hiern and Fresen leaf extracts and their synergistic effect against some selected human pathogenic bacteria.

METHODS

Ethanol, methanol, and n-hexane crude extracts of and a mixture of the two-plant respective of each solvent were evaluated against tested pathogenic bacteria using the agar well diffusion method; the inhibition zones were recorded in millimeters. Gentamycin was used as a positive control, while dimethyl sulfoxide served as a negative control. The minimum inhibitory concentration of the plant extracts against test bacteria was evaluated using two-fold broth dilution methods and then Minimum bactericidal concentration was determined by sub-culturing the test dilutions from minimum inhibitory concentration tubes onto fresh Muller Hinton Agar plates incubated at 37 °C for 24 h.

RESULTS

Maximum antibacterial inhibition zone was observed on methanol extracts of synergism against (ATCC 1333) (31.00 ± 1.73 mm) while, a minimum inhibition zone was observed on methanol extract of , against (ATCC 35218) (5.67 ± 0.57). Minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration values of the crude extracts of , , and their mixture lies between (3.125%-12.5%) and (6.25%-25%) respectively. The data were analyzed using the SPSS software package version 20 for windows.

CONCLUSION

The present study revealed that ethanol and methanol extracts of and possess significant inhibitory effects against tested pathogens and the antibacterial activity of both plants leaf extracts was greater than the activity of currently used antibiotics (Gentamycin) against some selected organisms.