ABSTRACT
India has a great diversity of medicinal plants with pharmacological activity. Hundreds of the Indian plants have been used by the local inhabitants to treat and cure the various infectious diseases since ancient time. Medicinal value of the plants is due to the active principles they harbor. Phenols, alkaloids, essential oils, flavonoids, tannins, etc. are the major groups of bioactive compounds found in plants. Hundreds of Indian plants extract show antimicrobial, antifungal, antiviral properties in-vitro as well as in-vivo. Besides this, several nanoparticles (NPs) of gold, silver, and zinc have been made from medicinal plants extract (green synthesis). These NPs have been found very effective against the various human pathogens. Plants extract and/or NPs synthesized from plant extract target the membranes, DNA or RNA, complexes of oxidative phosphorylation of the pathogen and destructed them. This literature documents about the medicinal plants of India and their antibiotic activities. Also, the types and nature of bioactive compounds and their target site in the pathogen is also discussed. In the last, plants derived NPs, their source and the activity is also discussed.
