Infectious diseases remain one of the leading causes of death due to antibiotic resistant microorganisms. The frequency of resistance in microbial pathogens continues to grow at an alarming rate throughout the world (Schmitz et al., 1999).

Infectious diseases remain one of the leading causes of death due to antibiotic resistant microorganisms. The frequency of resistance in microbial pathogens continues to grow at an alarming rate throughout the world (Schmitz et al., 1999).

Decreased efficacy and resistance of pathogens to antibiotics has necessitated development of new alternatives (Ravikumar et al., 2010). To overcome these problems, the development of effective newer drugs without any side effects is an urgent need. In general, marine plants such as mangroves, seaweeds, sea grasses and marines sponges are extensively studied for antiviral, antiplasmodial, antibacterial, antifungal, hepatoprotective, anti-ulcer properties (Ravikumar et al., 2009&2011).

Medicinal plant is plant containing substance which can be used for the medication or become precursor of drug synthesis (Sofowora, 1982). Medicinal plant has been source of human health since ancient time, whereas about 60-75% of world populations require plant for carrying health (Farnsworth, 1994; Joy et al., 1998 and Harvey, 2000). Plants and microbes are the main source of natural products (Hayashi et al., 1997; Armaka et al., 1999; Lin et al., 1999a &b and Basso et al., 2005), and consistently become main source of the newest drugs (Harvey, 2000). The drug development from natural sources are based on the bioassay-guided isolation of natural products, due to the traditional uses of local plants (ethnobotanical and ethanopharmacological applications) (Atta-ur-Rahman and Choudhary, 1999).

Seagrasses are submerged marine angiosperms growing abundantly in tidal and sub tidal areas of all seas except in the Polar Regions. Sea grass biomass is used as human food especially by coastal populations (Hemminga and Duarte, 2000). In folk medicine, seagrasses have been used for a variety of remedial purposes, like, fever, skin diseases, muscle pains, wounds and stomach problems etc. (de la Torre-Castro and Rönnbäck, 2004). In India, seagrasses were used as medicine (treatment of heart conditions, seasickness), food (nutritious seeds), fertilizer (nutrient rich biomass) and livestock feed (goats and sheep) (Newmaster et al., 2011). Seeds of Enhalus acoroides are thought to have aphrodisiac and contraceptive properties (Aliño et al., 1990). (12)

Numerous seagrasses have been shown to have antibacterial activities. Halophila stipulacea,Cymodocea serrulata and Halodule pinifolia (Kannan et al., 2010a), Enhalus acoroides (Qi et al., 2008) and Enhalus acoroides, Thalassiahemprichii, Halodule pinifolia, Syringodium isoetifolium, and Cymodocea rotundatahave been reported to exhibit antibacterial activity (Kannan et al., 2013). Moreover, preliminary data suggest that seagrasesses could represent an interesting source of antilarvacidal (Ali et al., 2013) and antioxidant (Ramah et al., 2014)

Discussion

In recent years, development of multidrug resistance in the pathogenic bacteria and parasites has created major clinical problems in the treatment of infectious diseases (Ravikumar et al., 2010a). There have been a number of reports that demonstrating the antimicrobial activity of seaweeds, mangroves and other marine forms and only limited information were available from the seagrasses of the corners of the world and even very mere information available from India. The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the ability of seagrass extracts to produce bioactive compounds of potential therapeutic interest. Antimicrobial activities found in seagrass was considered to be an indication of synthesis of bioactive secondary metabolites (Kannan et al., 2010a).

The antibacterial activity of five different leaves extracts of H. uninervis against seven bacterial pathogens strains were effective. Among them, ethanol extract was the more effective against P. aeruginosa than other extracts, this showed that ethanol is suitable for extracting active compounds from seagrass. This investigation were supported the earlier reports thus, the methanolic extract of Enhalus acoroides were effective against P. aeruginosa, K. pneumoniaeand S. aureus than hexane extract (Alam et al., 1994). The ethanolic extract in this study showed the best activity against pathogenic bacteria and this present findings is consistent with some earlier reports (Umamaheshwari et al., 2009) and it showed that ethanol and methanol extractions of the seagrasses Halophila ovalis and Halodule pinafolia showed better zone of inhibition against bacterial pathogens that other tested extracts.

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