Binit Baraik, Paras Jain and H.P. Sharma
Achyranthes aspera is a herb in amaranthaceae family, traditionally used in treatment of several diseases (inflammation, diabetes, hypertension, wounds, pain, pneumonia, diarrhea, dysentery, asthma, cough, dropsy, ulcers, piles, rheumatism, scabies and other skin diseases. and fever etc). The present study was carried out to investigate the antimicrobial activities of the methanolic extract and to investigate phytochemical profile of aqueous extract of vegetative parts of Achyranthes aspera. The methanol extracts were screened for antifungal activity against four fungi Fusarium oxysporum, Alternaria solani, Athelia rolfsii and Rhizoctonia solani by food poisoning method. The extracts of fresh Achyranthes aspera showed a significant and remarkable activity against all these four fungal species when compared to standard. The observed IC50 values for these funguses are 43.75μg/ml for Fusarium oxysporum, 27.5μg/ml for Alternaria spp., 19.37μg/ml for Sclerotium rolfsii. And 18.75μg/ml for Rhizoctonia solani. The phytochemical screening of the aqueous extract indicates that the fresh plant contain tannin, phlobatannin, terpenoid, flavonoid, cardiac glycoside, phenol and alkaloid. Phytochemical screening indicate the absence of saponin, steroid, free anthraquinone, and carbohydrate.
