Literary Research

Antimicrobial

An antimicrobial is an agent that kills microorganisms or stops their growth. Antimicrobial medicines can be grouped according to the microorganisms they act primarily against. For example, antibiotics are used against bacteria and antifungals are used against fungi. They can also be classified according to their function. Agents that kill microbes are called microbicidal, while those that merely inhibit their growth are called biostatic. The use of antimicrobial medicines to treat infection is known as antimicrobial chemotherapy, while the use of antimicrobial medicines to prevent infection is known as antimicrobial prophylaxis

The main classes of antimicrobial agents are:

• Disinfectants

("nonselective antimicrobials" such as bleach), which kill a wide range of microbes on non-living surfaces to prevent the spread of illness,

• Antiseptics

(which are applied to living tissue and help reduce infection during surgery),

• Antibiotics

(which destroy microorganisms within the body). The term "antibiotic" originally described only those formulations derived from living organisms but is now also applied to synthetic antimicrobials, such as the sulphonamides, or fluoroquinolones. The term also used to be restricted to antibacterials (and is often used as a synonym for them by medical professionals and in medical literature), but its context has broadened to include all antimicrobials.

Antibacterial agents can be further subdivided into 

• Bactericidal agents

which kill bacteria

• Bacteriostatic agents

which slow down or stall bacterial growth.


In response, further advancements in antimicrobial technologies have resulted in solutions that can go beyond simply inhibiting microbial growth. Instead, certain types of porous media have been developed to kill microbes on contact.

Extract of Ficus deltoidea

Extract

a preparation containing the active ingredient of a substance in concentrated form.

Ficus deltoidea

Ficus deltoidea, commonly known as mistletoe fig (Mas Cotek in Malaysian) is a large shrub or small tree species native to Southeast Asia, and widely naturalized in other parts of the world.


F. deltoidea is a small perennial herb, growing up to about 2 m tall, with thick leaves that are deltoid in shape, rounded at the apex and tapering at the base. The upper surface of the plants' leaves are dark, shining green, while the lower surface is golden yellow with black spots. Male and female plants are physically distinctive, with the leaves of female plants being big and round, while the leaves of male plants are small, round and long. The plant grows wild in eastern peninsular Malaysia (Kelantan, Terengganu) and in Borneo (Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan), and is used by the traditional medical practitioners in these regions.


Plant fungal pathogens

Pathogen

In biology, a pathogen in the oldest and broadest sense is anything that can produce disease; the term came into use in the 1880s.Typically the term is used to describe an infectious agent such as:

• virus
• bacterium
• protozoa
• prion
• fungus
• other micro-organism

There are several substrates including pathways where the pathogens can invade a host. The principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil contamination has the longest or most persistent potential for harboring a pathogen. Diseases caused by organisms in humans are known as pathogenic diseases.

Pathogenic fungus

Pathogenic fungi are fungi that cause disease in humans or other organisms. The study of fungi pathogenic to humans is called "medical mycology". Although fungi are eukaryotic, many pathogenic fungi are microorganisms. The study of fungi and other organisms pathogenic to plants is called plant pathology.

"Antimicrobial Extract of Ficus deltoidea to control plant fungal pathogens" is about a research to synthesis some kind of bio fungicide from 'Mas cotek'.