Ummat Ullah1, Muhammad Zahid Mumtaz1*, Tassadaq Hussain Jaffar1, Maqsood Ahmed Khaskheli 2, Annas Imran1, Ali Alam Zaib1, Saadia Shehzad1, Huma Pervaiz1, Aqsa Bibi1, Barroj Malik1, Muhammad Haleem1, Muhammad Fakhir1, Waseem Sarwar1, Ali Husnain Alvi1, Fatima Tu Zahra1, Fariha Qadir1 and Abdul Razzaq 1*
1Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, the University of Lahore, Lahore-54000, Pakistan 2Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang, Guizhou 550025, People’s Republic of China
*Corresponding author: zahidses@gmail.com (MZM); biolformanite@gmail.com (AR)
Medicinal plants have been used for decades against microbial diseases. Phytochemicals are used in the pharmacological industry as a natural substitute due to their potential biological activities, including antimicrobial activity. The present study extracted Henna leaves and stems using ethanol and n-hexane. These extracts were assessed for antimicrobial activity using the disc diffusion method and compared with the antibiotic gentamycin as a positive control. Henna extracts were investigated against six clinical bacterial strains, including two Gram-positive strains, viz. Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus and four Gram-negative viz. E. coli, S. typhi, P. aeruginosa, A. baumannii. The antifungal activity of henna was evaluated against four fungal strains viz. Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus paracitus, and Rhizopus stolonifer. The results of antibacterial activity revealed that the ethanol extract of henna leaves and stems reported maximum activity against S. aureus, while minimum activity was shown against A. baumanni. The ethanol extract of henna leaves and stems showed remarkable antifungal activity against A. paracitus and R. stolonifer, respectively. The High-performance liquid chromatography analysis revealed that the ethanol extract of henna was composed of ten phytochemicals. The results of this study showed that henna is potent with the antimicrobial component.