ABSTRACT

Bacterial pathogens have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to environmental parameters. In particular, the increasing use of antibiotics over the past few decades have led to the emergence and spread of various mechanisms of antimicrobial drug resistance among bacterial pathogen. There are many reports validating that the extractive yield varied with different solvents. However, in this chapter, different parts of the same plant extracted in the same solvent also showed different extractive yield. Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most prominent and widespread human pathogens, causing skin and tissue infections, deep abscess formation, pneumonia, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, toxic shock syndrome and bacteremia. Superoxide is biologically quite toxic and is deployed by the immune system to kill invading microorganisms. It is oxygen-centered radical with selective reactivity. The fruits of Indian medicinal plant Terminalia species are known for their pharmacological activity and in the chapter, it has been shown that the extracts can be used as an effective antioxidant and antibacterial.