ISSN: 2313-7479 Adv. Biomed. Pharma. 4:1 (2017) 19-30 Original Article A Study on Variation of Phytochemical Constituents with Altitude and In vitro antimicrobial potential of two species of Ajuga L. Shabana Gulzar 1 , Irshad A. Nawchoo 1 , Ubaid Yaqoob 1 * and Afrozah Hassan 1 1 Plant Reproductive Biology, Genetic Diversity and Phytochemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Kashmir, Srinagar 190006, J&K, India. *Corresponding Author: Ubaid Yaqoob E-mail address: ubaidyaqoob@yahoo.in ; Ph: +919796186479 Running Title: Variation of phytochemical constituents with altitude of Ajuga L. species Received: 22 February, 2017; Revised: 08 April, 2017 Accepted: 19 April, 2017 Available online at http://www.thescientificpub.com http://dx.doi.org/10.19046/abp.v04i01.04 Abstract The present study was aimed to assess the variation in the phytochemical constituents with altitude and the antibacterial potency of two medicinally important species, Ajuga bracteosa and Ajuga parviflora, growing in Kashmir valley. The methanolic extracts of both the species from different populations with varying altitudes were subjected to quantitative estimation of various phytochemicals by using various spectrophotometric techniques. It was observed that mean values of the analyzed phytochemical constituents varied significantly (p≤0.05) across the populations. Phytochemicals such as phenols, flavonoids, saponins, terpenoids and alkaloids were present in all the sampled populations but their quantity varied significantly across the populations. With the decrease in altitude the content of various phytochemicals gets reduced. The high altitude plants exposed to the extreme environmental conditions possess a good content of secondary metabolites altering their stress tolerance and thus enhancing their medicinal activity. The present study further revealed that the methanolic and ethyl acetate extracts of the two medicinal plant species under study; A. bracteosa and A. parviflora plant extracts possess potent antibacterial activity against two gram positive bacterial strains (B. subtilis, S. aureus) and two gram negative bacterial strains (E. coli, P. vulgaris). Therefore, these plants may prove as source of certain potent antibacterial molecules. Keywords: Ajuga bracteosa; Ajuga parviflora; Phytochemical constituents; antibacterial activity. Introduction The plants are known to be the source of important herbal medicines that help in curing of human diseases because of the presence of phytochemical constituents [1]. The pharmacological properties of medicinal plants are attributed to these phytochemical constituents isolated from their crude extracts [2]. These phytochemicals, also known as secondary metabolite, accumulate in different parts of medicinal plants like leaves, flowers and roots. There are more than thousand known and many unknown phytochemicals and plants produce these chemicals to protect themselves, but recent researches demonstrate that many phytochemicals can also protect human against diseases [3]. The secondary metabolites particularly phenols, flavonoids, alkaloids and terpenoids, exhibit a wide array of pharmacological activities including antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer activities. The qualitative and quantitative estimation of the phytochemical constituents of a medicinal plant is considered to be an important step in medicinal plant research. The biosynthesis of the secondary metabolites of the plants are determined by genetic and environmental factors as well as their interaction [4]. A variety of environmental Advances in Biomedicine and Pharmacy (An International Journal of Biomedicine, Natural Products and Pharmacy) 19