Rajkumar Bhosale¹, Sasidharan Sakkan², Sanman Kolhe¹, Sadanand Yewale¹, Shivaswamy Matadha Rudraiah³ and Sriram Padmanabhan⁴*

¹Herbal Division, Sava Healthcare Limited, Research Center, Chinchwad, Pune, India

*Corresponding Author: Sriram Padmanabhan, Head, R&D, SAVA Healthcare Limited, Research Center, MIDC, Chinchwad, Pune, India.

Received: October 04, 2021; Published: November 30, 2021

Abstract

The study investigated and characterized the microbes that contaminate Salacia reticulata herbal extracts used as an antidiabetic herbal formula. Also investigated was the microbial load of these herbal powders by pour plate technique and HiChrome agar spread plate methods. The characterization of the isolated microbes confirmed the dominance of members of the genus Bacillus by 16 sRNA sequencing. The fungal sps was found to be Aspergillus that was present in the raw material and also in the dry powder extract of Salacia. While the bacterial count was in the range of 10⁴ to 10⁵ cfu/g, the fungal count of Salacia extract ranged from 2.0 x10¹cfu/g to 1.9 x10² cfu/g. The isolated bacteria showed sensitivity towards Tetracycline, Gentamycin, Tobramycin, Kanamycin, Streptomycin, Ampicillin, Doripenum, Tripethoprim, Rifampicin and Fusidic acid and resistance towards the action of Azithomycin, Penicillin G, Carbenecillin, Moxifloxacin, Vancomycin and Nalidixic acid. Since tetracycline is a heat-labile antibiotic, we carried out a downstream process of extraction of one of the herbal raw material of Salacia reticulata with water with and without tetracycline. The obtained Salacia extract powders were then subjected to microbial counts and the results indicate >99.99% reduction in the bacterial and yeast and molds load by the proposed manufacturing process. Similar rate of microbial load reduction was seen when the Salacia extract with the microbial load of >10⁴ cfu/g was treated with tetracycline. The residual tetracycline in the final extract preparations was lesser than 5% to the original concentration used. This study emphasizes the need for constant monitoring and control of the standards of herbal medicines and discloses a simple method to reduce the microbial load present in the herbal samples using antibiotics so that after treatment, the microbial load are well within WHO standard.

Keywords: Aspergillus; WHO; Microbes; Salacia reticulata

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Citation

Citation: Sriram Padmanabhan., et al. “Characterization of the Microbes Isolated from Salacia reticulata Raw Material and its Extract: A Simple Method to Reduce the Microbial Load in Herbal Products". Acta Scientific Microbiology 4.12 (2021): 119-129.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Sriram Padmanabhan., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.