Antitubercular Activity of Essential Oils Extracted from Some Aromatic Plants, Flowers and Seeds

Background: Essential oils are the plant secondary metabolites, which are a complex mixture of flavoring volatile compounds. The biosynthesis of these volatile compounds by the plant is intended for chemical communication. They largely meant for activities like antimicrobial, cytoprotection, antioxidant and insect attraction to assist pollination. Essential oils largely contain unique mixture of mono and di terpenes. In the present work, we isolated essential oils from different plant parts including leaves, flowers and fruits which are using in our daily life and evaluated their Antitubercular activity and compared with antibacterial and anti-fungal activity. Materials and Methods: The isolation of essential oils (As these are ethereal compounds) were carried out by solvent extraction method and evaluated for their antibacterial and antifungal activity by Cup-plate agar diffusion method, and the antitubercular activity was evaluated by MABA method. Results: Among the samples tested, the flower extracts of Mari gold (Orange and yellow), Tagetus patula, Chrysanthemum (White, Yellow, Maroon and Purple), Roses (Red and orange), the flower petals and stalks of Night jasmine (Nyctanthes arbor-tristis) and Jasmine (J. officinalis and J. multifluram) shown potent antitubercular and good antibacterial activity. All these flower extracts shown good anti-fungal activity except Jasmine species. Significant anti-fungal action was seen in the extracts of umbelliferous fruits like fennel, cumin, and caraway. Whereas aromatic plants (Mint and Sweet Marjoram) have shown both antibacterial and antifungal activity. Conclusion: Essential oil of all the samples has shown potent antitubercular activity when comparing with standard drugs Rifampicin, Streptomycin etc, and it was noted that these are having selectivity towards mycobacterium when comparing with bacteria and fungi.