JASC: Journal of Applied Science and Computations ISSN NO: 1076-5131

Review on antibacterial activities of somnifera

P.Maheswari

Assistant Professor, Department of Nautical Science, School of Maritime Studies, Vels Institute of Science, Technology and Advanced Studies, Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) , popularly known as Ashwagandha belong to the family. They form the major medicinal herb used in the ancient medicine system to cure cardiovascular diseases and increase the longer and healthy life. They have been identified as a medicinal herb to cure most of the nervous disorders. This review article is presented to compile the various research articles of the ashwagandha particularly antibacterial activities of the . The Ashwagandha exhibit pharmacological activities which make the herb to be the significant among other herbs.

Keywords Medicinal; cardiovascular; antibacterial, herbs and biological.

Introduction

Withania somnifera (WS) is one of the important plant in the ayurvedic medicine system. It is a small evergreen which grows five feet tall. It is grown in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan [Ven Murthy et al.,]. In Unani, Siddha and system this plant species have been used for various techniques [Sangwan et al.,]. In Latin somnifera means sleep inducing and used for sexual purposes. In is used for the medicinal purpose and so some scientists they name Ashwagandha as Indian ginseng. W. somnifera Dunal (Solanaceae), additionally referred to as Ashwagandha or winter cherry, is one amongst the foremost valuable plants within the ancient Indian systems of medication.

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Figure 1 : Ashwagandha Plant

Botanical classification : Kingdom : Plantae, Plants Subkingdom : Tracheobionta Division : Angiosperma Class : Dicotyledons Order : Family : Solanaceae Genus : Withania Species : somnifera Dunal

Table 1 : Common names for Ashwagandha in different languages

S.No Languages Common Names 1. Ashwagandha, Turangi - gandha 2. English Winter cherry 3. Hindi Punir , asgandh 4. Bengali Ashvagandha 5. Gujarati Ghodakun, Ghoda, Asoda, Asan 6. Telugu Pulivendram, Panneru - gadda, Panneru 7. Tamil Amukkura, Amkulang, Amukkuram - kilangu, Aswagandhi 8. Karnataka Viremaddlinagadde, Panneru,Aswagandhi, Kiremallinagida

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9. Goa Fatarfoda 10. Punjabi Asgand, Isgand 11. Bombay Asgund, Asvagandha 12. Rajasthan Chirpotan

In ayurvedic system, the roots are found to be an excellent drug for curing swellings, tumors. Leaves are used for antibacterial properties. Fruits and seeds are used in increasing the production of urine.

Chemical Constituents

The Chemical components of Withania somnifera forms a major research area in the field of Biology. Analysis have shown that there are nearly 35 chemical constituents present in the roots of Withania somnifera. [Rastogi RP et al.,] The chemical constituents are , Steroidal compounds and Saponins. Alkaloids include ashwagandhine, cuscohygrine, anahygrine, tropine etc., The alkaloids and steroidal lactones form the major constituents of ashwagandha. Withanone and Withaferin is the main component of the alkaloids and forms the major component in Steroidal lactones present in leaves.

Withanolides

Wenjing Lai et al., synthesized the Withania somnifera extracts with methanol, deionised water, ethyl acetate, hexane and chloroform solvents and then subjected to disk diffusion assay. The study is mainly focussed on the rheumatic fever and Hashimoto’s disease. The rheumatic fever is caused by the Streptococcus pyogenes and Hashimoto’s disease is caused by Y. enterocolitica. So the antibacterial activity is studied against these two pathogens responsible for the diseases. He analyzed the methanolic and aqueous extracts of the roots using tetracycline as positive and DMSO as negative control. The results showed that aqueous extract showed highest zone of inhibition against S.pyogenes. In the case of

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Y.entercolotica both methanolic and aqueous extracts showed same zone of Inhibition of nearly about 8mm. The author also reported that when the methanolic extract is combined with the ciprofloxacin it enhances the activity against S.pyogenes which is advantageous for the treatment of rhemautic fever. In the case of Y.enterocolitica tetracycline combined with the aqueous extract motivates the action futher. But this combination leads to side effects with negative results in the case of Hashimoto's disease. So it is better to avoid this combination during the treatment of Hashimoto's disease.

Geeta Singh et al., observed the antibacterial activity of different parts of ashwagandha against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus mirabilis and Staphylococcus aureus subjected to Disc Diffusion Assay [Gould and Bowie et al ; Jain and Sharma et al ; Andrews et al]. She pointed out that the fruits of Withania somnifera has more content. The alkaloid content of different parts of Ashwagandha is found to be 12, 10.5, 7 and 43 mg / gdw for roots, stem, leaf and fruits respectively. Streptomycin is used as control for the antibacterial assay. She observed that the roots of the plant show inhibition zone against P.aeruginosa, P.mirabilis and S.aureus. Similarly stem and leaf parts showed activity against P.mirabilis and S.aureus, fruits exhibit activity against E.coli and S.aureus .It is recorded that compared with other parts, the roots exhibit highest zone of inhibition and excellent antibacterial activity. Punum Bisht et al., investigated the antimicrobial nature of the ashwagandha leaf extracts against Streptococcus species. He took the positive cocci from the pus samples of 20 patients admitted in the Government Medical college, Haldwani. He subjected the samples to the agar diffusion method and found that they are effective in inhibiting the bacterial strains. The zone of inhibition against Streptococcus Spp. is found to be 21.2 mm and 22.2 mm for 1 and 2 mg/ml concentration of the leaf extracts respectively. As the concentration increases the inhibition zone also increases. Mahesh B et al., studied the methanolic root and leaf extracts of Withania somnifera (100 μg ml-1) against Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, pseudomonas fluorescence, Staphylococcus aureus and Xanthonomonas axonopodies using Streptomycin (10 μg ml -1) as antibiotic which is subjected to disk diffusion method.

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Table 2 : The zone of inhibition values for the methanolic solvent for the withania somnifera ( WS) is given by

S.NO Bacteria Species Root extracts of WS Leaf extracts of WS Streptomycin 1. Bacillus subtilis 14±0.57 15±0.33 16±0.33 2. Escherichia coli 15±0.00 16±0.57 18±0.33 3. Pseudomonas. fluorescense 14±0.33 15±0.33 14±0.33 4. Staphylococcus aureus 14±0.66 15±0.33 15±0.33 5. Xanthonomonas axonopodies 14±0.57 16±0.66 16±0.33

Dr. Premlata Singariya et al., studied the antibacterial and antifungal activity of the Calyx , fruit parts of ashwagandha using benzene, chloroform and water solvents using agar disc diffusion test. He subjected the samples against three bacterial strains namely Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis, enterobactor aerogens and fungal species namely Aspergillus flavus. He observed that the chloroform extracts of Withania somnifera showed excellent activity against the pathogenic organism such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Bacillus subtilis. He reported that since the MIC value is low, they show good antibacterial activity against these pathogens. The bacterial zone of inhibition is found to be 10.17 mm for unripened fruit, 8.33 mm for ripened fruit and 16.17 mm for Calyx part of Withania.

Peter G Mwitari et al., analyzed the antibacterial nature of Withania somnifera, Warbugia ugandensis, Prunus Africana and Plectrunthus barbatus for many microbial diseases. He observed that the Dichloromethane and ethyl acetate extract of Withania somnifera increased the antimicrobial activity and the zone of inhibition is found to be 16mm and 14 nm for Staphylococcus aureus of dichloromethane and ethyl acetate extracts respectively. Owais et al., reported the antibacterial activities of Root and leaf parts of Withania somnifera using aqueous and alcoholic solvents. The extracts are subjected to agar well diffusion technology using the test organism namely E.coli, S.aureus and S.typhimurium for hexane(HX), Ethyl acetate (EA), Methanol (ME) and Water(W) Solvents. Tetracycline and Chloramphenicol are used as standard controls. S.typhimurium showed excellent antibacterial activity for EA, ME and W extracts of Ashwagandha. Hexane showed no activity against pathogenic organisms for both leaf and root parts of the plant. Among the various extracts, the methanol extracts are found to exhibit highest bacterial zone of inhibition. In the case Leaf parts, for E.coli, the maximum zone is observed for methanol solvent, S.aureus the zone is found to be maximum for water solvent and S.typhimurium shows maximum inhibition zone for Methanol solvents. In the case of root parts, for E.coli, S.aureus and S.typhimurium the water, methanol and methanol extracts have shown maximum

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zone of Inhibition. Overall the roots and leaves of Withania somnifera is used for curing bacterial infections particularly including salmonellosis. Conclusion Withania somnifera is known to be popularly as ashwagandha and the plant parts are mainly used in the antibacterial activities. The antibacterial nature of the plant is reported by various researchers and still many more researchers are interested in analyzing the biological activities of the plants.

References

Andrews JM. “BSAC standardized disc susceptibility testing methods”. J. Antimicrob Chemother, 2001 ; 4 :43 – 57. Geeta Singh and Padma Kumar.“Antimicrobial efficacy of alkaloids of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) an indigenous medicinal plant against some pathogens”. Journal of Pharmacy Research, 2011 ; 4(3) : 807-809 Gould JC, Bowie JH. “ The determination of bacterial of sensitivity of antibiotics”. Edinb Med J, 1952 ; 59 :178. 1952. Jain N, Sharma M. “ Broad spectrum antimycotic drug for the treatment of ringworm infection in human beings". Curr Sci, 2001 ; 85: 30-34. Owais M, Sharad KS, Shehbaz A, Saleemuddin M." Antibacterial efficacy of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) an indigenous medicinal plant against experimental murine salmonellosis". Phytomedicine, 2005 ; 12 : 229 - 235. Punum Bisht and Vinita Rawat. "Antibacterial activity of Withania somnifera against Gram - positive isolates from pus samples". Ayu, 2014 ; 3(5) : 330 - 332. Dr. Premlata Singariya, Dr. Krishan Kumar Mourya and Dr. Padma Kumar. “Antimicrobial Activity of

the Crude Extracts of Withania somnifera and Cenchrus setigerus In-vitro”. Pharmacognosy Journal, 2012 ; 4 (27) : 60 – 65. Peter G Mwitari , Peter A Ayeka, Joyce Ondicho, Esther N.Matu, Christine C Bii .“ Antimicrobial Activity and Probable Mechanisms of Action of Medicinal Plants of Keny : Withania somnifera, Warbugia ugandensis, Prunus Africana and Plectrunthus barbatus”. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (6) : e65619. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065619. Rastogi RP, Mehrotra BN, " Compendium of Indian Medicinal Plants" Central Drug Research Institute, New Delhi.Vol.6;1998. Sangwan RS et al., "Phytochemical variability in commercial herbal products and preparations of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha)". Curr.Sci., 2004 ; 86 : 461 - 465.

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Ven Murthy MR, Ranjekar PK, Ramassamy C, Deshpande M."Scientific basis for the use of Indian Ayurvedic medicinal plants in the treatment of neurodegenrative disorders: Ashwagandha", Cent Nerv Syst Agents Med Chem., 2010 ; 10 (3) : 238 - 246. Wenjing Lai , Jianan Chen , Ian Edwin Cock and Matthew J. Cheesman. " The Interactive Antimicrobial Activity of Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal Root Extracts and Conventional Antibiotics Against some Bacterial Triggers of Autoimmune Inflammatory Diseases", Pharmacogn. Commn, 2018 ; 8(2): 86 - 92.

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