Antimicrobial Evaluation of Lipid Extract of Pongamia pinnata Leaves

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of selected plant Pongamia pinnata used in ancient days for the treatment of so many skin diseases. Surface lipids of the selected plant were extracted using chloroform. The crude lipid extract was subjected to column chromatography, by using different solvents pentane, 1% ethyl acetate in hexane, 5% ethyl acetate in hexane, chloroform, methanol yielding five fractions from the crude lipid extract. These fractions were tested against bacterial and fungal strains using agar cup bioassay method and broth dilution method. Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus sphearicus, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermis, Escheritia coli, Pseudomonas aerogenosa, Klebsella pneumoniae, Candida albicans, Candida rugosa, Sacharomyces cerevisiae, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus were the 12 microbial strains used for the in vitro antimicrobial study. Pentane and 1% ethyl acetate in hexane fractions showed no activity on all microbial strains except S.epidermidis where as all other fractions showed moderate activity on all microbial strains except E.coli and B.subtilis. All the fractions showed greatest activity against S.epidermidis. In case of antifungal assay, pentane and 1% ethyl acetate fractions showed no activity on all fungal strains, where as rest of the fractions showed moderate activity on all fungal strains. This study supports the selected plant showed encouraging results, as it found to contain substances that had antimicrobial activity because of, the isolated compounds of Pongamia pinnata were active against 10 out of 12 microbial strains.