Assay for Rapid Screening of Phytochemicals as Antimicrobial Agents

The present study aims to develop a rapid method for antibiotic sensitivity detection and screening of natural products for antimicrobial activity. The dimension of WBC in blood film was found to get altered when seeded with bacteria and monitored under light microscope. The shrinkage was prevented in response to antibiotic treatment and validated using statistical analysis (two sample one tailed Z test). Thus here is a prompt (4 h) assay system for detection of blood infection, antibiotic sensitivity detection as well as natural antimicrobial candidate molecule screening using identical procedure. The antimicrobial activity of ethanolic leaf extract of Mentha spicata against multidrug resistant Pseudomonas auregenosa from clinical origin was screened using both conventional disc diffusion method and the rapid shrinkage method. Both the methods showed equal efficiency with the later being much faster (4 h) than the conventional method (72 h).