Abstract
Malayali tribals of Kolli hills, Tamil Nadu, India use many plants for oral healthcare. The present study documents the dental caries preventing medicinal plants used by them and attempts to validate their claim. An ethnomedicinal survey comprising field visits, collection of information using specific questionnaire was done to collect the medicinal plants used by them. The plants cited by the informants were collected and successively extracted with hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol and evaluated for their antimicrobial efficacy against four cariogenic clinical isolates. The MIC, anti-biofilm efficacy and GC-MS phytoconstituent identification were also done. This study identified 15 species that were commonly used by the Malayali tribals to maintain oral health and hygiene. Among the tested extracts, the methanol extract of Tephrosia purpurea (L.) Pers. Fabaceae showed highest inhibitory activity against the cariogenic isolates. At 1 mg/ml concentration, it inhibited the biofilm formation by 92.0%, 77.6%, 74.1% and 94.9% against L. casei, S. mutans, S. aureus and K. pneumoniae, respectively. The active methanol extract's GC-MS analysis resulted in the identification of eleven major compounds. The rich traditional knowledge of tribal people has immense potential for caries and other oral health management along with pharmacological lead compound studies.