479-492The aims of this study were to document
ethnomedicinal knowledge of the tribes of Darjeeling hills and evaluate
antimicrobial and antioxidant activities among the sampled plants. The study
reports 78 plant species (47 families and 70 genera) from the three hilly sub-divisions
of Darjeeling district. For antimicrobial evaluation, disc diffusion assay was
used against a panel of 11 microorganisms (6 Gram positive bacteria species, 1
Gram negative bacteria species, 2 yeast species and 2 mould species).
Antioxidant potential of the plants was investigated by assaying their total
phenol content, total flavonoid content, DPPH·, <span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-ascii-font-family:
" times="" new="" roman";mso-hansi-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-char-type:symbol;="" mso-symbol-font-family:symbol"="" lang="EN-GB">·OH and ABTS·+-scavenging activities, reducing
power, metal-chelating activity and anti-lipid peroxidation activity. For
statistical analysis, Pearson’s Chi Square test was used. Both PRTAU (plants
with reports of traditional antimicrobial use) (40.3%) and PNRTAU (plants with
no reports of traditional antimicrobial use) were equally active against the
microorganisms tested. The <span style="font-family:Symbol;
mso-ascii-font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-hansi-font-family:"times="" roman";="" mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:symbol"="" lang="EN-GB">c2- test confirms that statistically there is a difference in count of
PRTAU versus PNRTAU plants in different activity groups, indicating PRTAU
plants have higher (P<0.05)
probability (71.4% for PRTAU against 35.3% for PNRTAU) of showing lower MIC
values than PNRTAU plants. In both the groups, plants displayed good
antioxidant activities.
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