Antibacterial activities of Diospyros blancoi, Phoenix dactylifera and Morus nigra against dental caries causing pathogens: An in vitro study.

The study was undertaken to determine the in-vitro antibacterial potential of Diospyrosblancoi, Phoenix dactylifera and Morusnigra leaf extracts in hexane, chloroform, methanol, ethyl-acetate and aqueous extracts against dental caries causing bacteria. Disc diffusion assay was used to determine the antibacterial efficacy; the extracts were further separated using Thin Layer Chromatography and the anti-biofilm activity of the extracts was also determined. The preliminary phytochemical screening of the extracts revealed the presences of flavonoids, saponins, alkaloids and tannins because of which the extracts showed strong antibacterial activity against the selected pathogens. The ethyl-acetate extracts showed maximum inhibitory effect on biofilm formation by S. mutans.96% inhibition was observed in methanol extract of Diospyrosblancoi, and 95% in ethyl acetate extract. The results evidenced that the plants inhibit the growth of oral bacteria responsible for dental caries with their abundance source of secondary metabolites and can be used as an alternative treatment for caries, thus minimizing the antibiotics used to treat the disease in local medicine.