Antibacterial effect of some Egyptian plants on antibiotic-resistant oral bacteria

Magdy A. Abu-Gharbia, El-Sayed M. Soltan, Osman M. El-Maghraby and Walaa M. Abd El-Raheem^*

Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Sohag University, Sohag, Egypt

*Corresponding   Author  E-mail:  walaa123us@yahoo.com; Tel.: ‏+20934601159; Fax: ‏+20934601159

Accepted 02 January, 2015

Abstract

The present study was conducted with a view to evaluate the therapeutic potentials of six plants traditionally used in Egypt against multi-drug resistant oral pathogens isolated from infected patients with different oral diseases. All ethanol extracts of tested plants were found to exhibit potential antimicrobial properties against multi-drug resistant isolates but maximum zone of inhibition was observed in ethanol extracts of Allium sativum and Syzygium aromaticum which showed the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against Streptococcus mutans and Staphylococcus aureus to be 0.39 mg/ml. The antibacterial activities observed could be due to the presence of some of the secondary metabolites like, alkaloids, anthraquinones, sterols, glycosides, saponins, terpenes and flavonoids which detected in ethanol extracts. The bioautographic results revealed that the maximum zone of inhibition of Syzygium aromaticum and Allium sativum were observed at R_f 0.64 & 0.82, respectively which indicates that the compound retained at these R_f values having potent antibacterial efficacy against the selected oral pathogens. The findings of present study lend support for the use of them in preparation of toothpastes and mouth rinses containing these antimicrobial agents for the prevention of oral microbial diseases.

Keywords: plant extracts, antibacterial, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), phytochemical, bioautography.