Validation of tribal claims on unexplored wild nutraceutical tuberous food Ban Aalu (Dioscorea species) of Similipal Biosphere Reserve, Odisha through evaluation of antibacterial activity

UGC-DRS-SAP & DST, New Delhi sponsored National Seminar on Medicinal plants (NSMP-2016), 16^th-17^th Feb 2016-02-22

Award for best oral presentation

Sanjeet Kumar

sanjeet.biotech@gmail.com

Department of Botany, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack-753003, Odisha

Adequate food and medicines for healthy life are major challenges for the third world countries like India. These two problems need to be addressed properly by screening the nutraceuticals and proper validation of the medicinal claims is also necessary. The forests of Odisha form a major part of Eastern Ghats. Similipal Biosphere Reserve (SBR) located in the district of Mayurbhanj form a greater portion of Eastern Ghats ranges. Besides having sound floral biodiversity, SBR is inhabited by many tribal communities. Many of these tribal communities are dependent on the tuberous plants available in these forest ranges for their food and cure. The tribals of SBR use about 89 types of tuberous plants for various purposes. Dioscorea (Ban Aalu) is one such tuber having maximum use among the tribals of SBR.  However, less documentations and no specific reports are available on the food and medicinal values of the species available in this locality. Keeping this in view, an attempt has been made to document the food and medicinal values of Dioscorea species (D. pentaphylla, D. hispida, D. bulbifera, D. puber and D. alata) available in SBR and to validate the claims through the evaluation of antibacterial activities by estimation of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).  For evaluation of MIC, two organic extracts (methanol & acetone) and an aqueous extract of five selected Dioscorea species were used against the selected bacterial strains, Vibrio cholerae (MTCC 3906), Salmonella typhi (MTCC 1252), Shigella flexneri (MTCC 1457), Streptococcus pyogens (MTCC 1926) and Streptococcus mutans (MTCC 497). Ethnobotanical surveys revealed that tuber of all Dioscorea species are used to cure different types of infections caused by the bacterial species.  The organic extracts of all selected Dioscorea tuber extracts were more effective in comparison to the aqueous extracts against both Gram negative and Gram positive bacterial strains studied as per MIC values. It was observed that among the selected Dioscorea tuber extracts, D. penatphylla showed highest antibacterial activity (Lowest MIC values) against the tested pathogenic bacterial strains followed by D. bulbifera, D. puber, D. hispida and D. alata. The study aims to explore the antibacterial activities of Dioscorea tuber extracts and to validate the accuracies of some of the tribal claims prevalent among the communities.