ANTIMICROBIAL AND PHYTOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF YOUNGCOCOS NUCIFERA(COCONUT) WATER AND METHALONIC EXTRACT OF THE YOUNGCOCOS NUCIFERA(COCONUT) HUSK

ANTIMICROBIAL AND PHYTOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF YOUNGCOCOS NUCIFERA(COCONUT) WATER AND METHALONIC EXTRACT OF THE YOUNGCOCOS NUCIFERA(COCONUT) HUSK

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Medicinal plants represent a rich source of antimicrobials and many other drugs. The potentials of
higher plants as source for new drugs is still largely unexplored. Antibiotic resistance has become a
global concern (Westhet al., 2004). The clinical efficacy of many existing antibiotics is being
threatened by the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens (Bandow, 2003). Many
infectious diseases have been known to be treated with herbal remedies throughout the history of
mankind. Natural products, either as pure compounds or as standardized plant extracts, provide
unlimited opportunities for new drug leads because of the unmatched availability of chemical diversity.
There is a continuous and urgent need to discover new antimicrobial compounds with diverse chemical structures and novel mechanisms of action for new and re-emerging infectious diseases (Rojas et al., 1992). Therefore, researchers are increasingly turning their attention to local herbs, looking for new leads to develop better drugs against microbial infections (Benkeblia, 2004). The increasing failure of chemotherapeutics and antibiotic resistance exhibited by pathogenic microbial infectious agents has led to the screening of several medicinal plants for their potential antimicrobial activity (Kapila, 2005 ;Runyoro et al.,2006). The rising prevalence of antibiotics resistant pathogenic microorganisms raises the demand for finding new alternative antimicrobial agents. The drugs already in use to treat infectious disease are of concern because drug safety remains an enormous global issue. Most of the synthetic drugs cause side effects and also most of the microbes developed resistant against the synthetic drugs (Chanda and Rakholiya 2011). To alleviate this problem, antimicrobial compounds
from potential plants should be explored. These drugs from plants are less toxic; side effects are scanty and also cost effective. They are effective in the treatment of infectious diseases while
simultaneously mitigating many of the side effects that are often associated with synthetic antimicrobials (Harishchandraet al., 2012).

ANTIMICROBIAL AND PHYTOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF YOUNGCOCOS NUCIFERA(COCONUT) WATER AND METHALONIC EXTRACT OF THE YOUNGCOCOS NUCIFERA(COCONUT) HUSK