Treatment of E. coli 46R641 cells carrying multidrug resistant TP181 plasmid with phenolic compounds namely bharangin, gossypetin, gossypin and quercetin lead to the concurrent loss of all the six plasmid linked antibiotic resistance markers. Among these test compounds, bharangin exhibited higher efficiency in curing of plasmids belonging to IncF1, H1 and X groups. However, multicopy plasmids with ColE1 origin of replication were totally refractory to these curing agents under similar conditions. The curing activity of the test compounds was much higher as compared to some of the known curing agents.