South Asian Journal of Research in Microbiology

Uropathogens are the causative agents of urinary tract infections (UTIs). Although, UTI can be treated with antibiotics but, the increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant uropathogens poses a major setback to the treatment of UTIs hence the need to search for alternative therapies. This study is therefore aimed to analyze the antimicrobial properties of the extract of some medicinal plants such as Zingiber officinale, Hibiscus sabdariffa, Justicia carnea, their nanoparticles and honey on common uropathogens are; Staphylococcus aureus, S. saprophyticus, Enterococcus faecalis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris, Escherichia coli and Candida sp.  The antibiogram profile of the test uropathogens was determined using standard assay prior the plant extract and nanosynthesized plant extract assays. The plant extracts were prepared using ethanol, chloroform and hot water as extraction solvents while the nanosynthesis of the plant extracts was performed using standard methods. The antibiogram of the test uropathogens showed that almost all the tested urobacteria were resistant to all the antibiotics used with multiple antibiotics resistance index ranged from 0.3-0.9, E. faecalis having the highest MARI (0.9). On the other hand, all the Candida strains used were resistant to the tested antifungal agents. Out of all the prepared extracts, the ethanol calyx extract of H. sabdariffa was the most effective on the test urobacteria. The nanosynthesized plant extracts however, was effective against all the uropathogens with the 1M nanobased hot water calyx extract of H. sabdariffa displaying the highest growth inhibitory activity on all the test uropathogens. This work revealed that the ethanol calyx extract of H. sabdariffa and nanobased hot water calyx extract of H. sabdariffa can be explored for the development of more effective drugs against MARI uropathogens.