Antimicrobial studies of Ficus benghalensis and Ficus racemosa on pathogenic viral diseases

Background and aims: Medicinal plant products are considered to be an effective candidate against the number of viral diseases as generally observed or reported in developing countries. As per the literature, secondary metabolites (i.e. Alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins etc.) are reported in medicinal plant products and showed its antiviral properties. In this study, our group focused on those medicinal plants especially roots of Ficus benghalensis and Ficus racemosa related to New castle Disease Virus (NDV) and Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD) having in vitro antiviral activity. These studies were conducted on the human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Methods: For antimicrobial studies, different medicinal plant products especially roots of Ficus benghalensis and Ficus racemosa were collected from Vidya Pratishthan’s garden, School of Biotechnology, Baramati. These medicinal plant leaves are used in the form of aqueous extract and determined its anti-microbial activity against poultry viruses (i.e. NDV and IBD) in PBMC and determined proliferation assay, Th۱ (TNF alpha) cytokine production and CD۱۴ monocyte surface marker. Results: Three medicinal plant aqueous extracts showed noteworthy antimicrobial activity with respect to decline in proliferation assay, TNF alpha production and CD۱۴ monocyte surface marker in human PBMC as compared to control. Conclusion: Some of the medicinal plant products have shown antimicrobial activity. Further immunobiological research is mandatory to elucidate the most active constituents that are present in these aqueous extracts which may be useful or target molecule in the development of new effective and safe antiviral agents.

کلیدواژه ها:

Ficus benghalensis ، Ficus racemose ، Antimicrobial ، NDV ، IBD