ANTIMICROBIAL SCREENING OF THE LEAF EXTRACTS OF Cissus aralioides (Welw. ex Baker) Planch. AND Cissus polyantha Gilg & Brandt.

Plants are valuable sources of natural products with great potentials for producing new drugs. This study aimed at evaluating the antimicrobial activities of acetone, ethanol and aqueous leaf extracts of Cissus aralioides and Cissus polyantha against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Psuedomonas aeruginos, Salmonella typhi and Candida albicans using the agar well diffusion method. The zones of inhibition were measured in millimeters (mm) and presented as mean values with the standard error. The ethanol extract of C. polyantha showed the highest zone of inhibition of 12 mm against P. aureginosa at a concentration of 100 mg/ml. This was significantly lower than the activities of the standard antibiotics against the same pathogen. Similarly, the observed zone of inhibition (6.5 mm) of acetone extracts of C. polyantha against S. typhi, was lower than the standard antibiotics with a range of 22.55\(\pm\)0.43 mm to 32.75\(\pm\) 0.82 mm. Cold aqueous extracts of both species showed no inhibition zone. The leaf extracts of the two plant species did not significantly inhibit bacterial and fungal growths which suggests that C. polyantha and C. aralioides leaf extracts may not be effective in the treatment of microbial infections caused by the test organisms used in this study.