Validating the Antimicrobial Potentiality of Peptides from Pods of <i>Acacia nilotica</i> Willd.ex Delile: A Spotlight on Bacterial Fauna

Abstract

Contagious infections cause over 17 million human deaths in a year among which diseases caused by bacteria are the most prominent ones. Additionally, in the last few years, the haphazard usage of antibiotics has provoked the condition of multifarious defiance in the bacterial strains against these chemical drugs thus contributing to an upsurge towards severe economic and communal welfare-related uncertainties. Thus, to annihilate such situations there is a compelling demand to explore novel substitutes to overcome these concerns. Hence, such problematic situations bring up the limelight towards plant-derived proteins/peptides possessing antimicrobial activity which prove to be excellent alternatives against bacterial pathogens causing serious maladies in humans. Therefore, in this context the current study investigated the antibacterial potential of the Ethanol, Methanol and Chloroform peptides/protein isolate obtained from pods of Acacia nilotica by Disc-Diffusion Assay and MIC (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration) against E. coli and B. subtilis bacterial strains. The antibacterial activity of all three solvent peptide isolates was found to be exhibiting antimicrobial activity at a concentration of 100μg/ml against B. subtilis with Disc-Diffusion as well as MIC with Chloroform isolate displaying the highest activity against gram-positive Bacillus species. Therefore, such plant-derived antibacterial proteins/peptides in the future can be used as a therapeutic drug to combat various severe bacterial maladies thus providing a better alternative than antibiotics both in terms of safety against unwanted secondary effects as well as will also help in bringing down the graphs of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) posing a serious threat to the human health. As a result, the study concludes that peptide isolates obtained from Acacia nilotica pods are effective against gram-positive Bacillus species, making them an important antibacterial compound.