Antibacterial Activity of Ficus lyrata -An In vitro Study

Objective : To evaluate the antibacterial potential of extract and compounds isolated from Ficus lyrata. Materials and Methods: The aqueous and ethanol extracts of F. lyrata and two pure compounds i.e. Ursolic acid (FL-1) and Acacetin-7-Oneohesperidoside (FL-2) isolated from F. lyrata were tested against several standard bacterial strains by the Kirby Bauer method on Mueller Hinton agar and two fold serial dilution method with saline for determining the MIC. Key Findings : F. lyrata showed potent antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella dysenteriae Shigella boydii, Citrobacter freundii, Proteus vulgaris, Proteus mirabilis, Klebsiella. The aqueous extract was more potent than alcoholic extract. The isolated compounds were more potent and showed an improved spectrum of activity as compared to the crude extract. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of aqueous extract of F.lyrata and the isolated compounds were found to be significantly low for all the tested bacterial strains. Conclusion : The study suggests that the extracts obtained from the leaves of F. lyrata possess excellent antibacterial activity which could possibly be attributed to the two compounds i.e. FL-1 and FL-2.