Antibacterial activity of Satureja bakhtiarica bung essential oil against some human pathogenic bacteria

Abstract

Bacterial infections are a major problem in humans; as such, replacing the chemical drugs used against them with plant drugs is an important research. Here, the chemical compositions and antibacterial activity of the essential oils obtained from Satureja bakhtiarica bung against ten human pathogenic bacteria were evaluated. Chemical compositions of essential oil were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method. Antibacterial activity of essential oil was evaluated by well diffusion method. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were determined by the macrodilution method. The GC-MS spectrums showed 13 compounds, in which the highest chemical composition was related to phenol (37.36%), thymol (22.65%) and p-cymen (19.29%) compounds. The essential oil of Satureja bakhtiarica bung showed good activity against all tested bacteria, except for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is possibly due to the high levels of phenol in their compositions. The MIC and MBC values of the bacterial strains sensitive to the essential oil were in the ranges of 0.8 to 25 and 50 to 100 mg/ml, respectively. However, the essential oil of Satureja bakhtiarica bung is a suitable plant drug against human pathogenic bacteria. Key words: Satureja bakhtiarica, antibacterial, essential oil.