Abstract
Schinus molle (L.) is a dioecious plant of the Anacardiaceae family, originating in South America and currently widespread in many regions throughout the world. In this work leaf extracts and derived low-pressure column chromatography (LPCC) fractions of S. molle L. male and female plants were investigated for the antimicrobial activity. Leaf extracts were tested on microbes Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Candida albicans and Bacillus subtilis. Furthermore, the extracts showing antimicrobial activity were fractionated by LPCC and the obtained fractions tested on the same microorganism strains. Positive fractions were investigated by gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and were seen to be rich in sesquiterpenes, sesquiterpenoids and other terpens. The obtained effects highlighted the antimicrobial properties of S. molle (L.) leaf compounds and revealed their importance as a source of bioactive molecules of potential pharmaceutical interest. To our knowledge, this is the first paper reporting investigations on the chemical composition of the extracts and derived positive fractions from Schinus molle (L.) plants grown in central Italy
Highlights
Over the decades, the extensive use of antibiotics, especially prophylaxis, has led to the development of resistant pathogens [1]
We found the presence of molecules—such as elemol, β-elemene, β–caryophyllene, germacrene D, bicyclogermacrene, spathulenol, α-eudesmol, β-eudesmol, γ-eudesmol, isocalamendiol, sabinene and n-hexadecanoic acid—that could be related to possible antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal activities, as already reported in literature [34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45]
The antibacterial assay of the S. molle (L.) leaf extracts was carried out using the disk diffusion test
Summary
The extensive use of antibiotics, especially prophylaxis, has led to the development of resistant pathogens [1]. Disease control to combat emerging and re-emerging pathogen resistance can be counteracted by modifying existing antibiotics [2] and searching for new antibiotics from natural products, which can provide a range of molecules to be tested for this purpose. From this perspective, the literature of the last 20 years has grown in quantity and quality and many studies have been carried out to test the antimicrobial activity of extracts from plant matrices. Lavandin essential oil (liquid and vapour phase) showed an antimicrobial activity against gram-negative (E. coli, Acinetobacter bohemicus, and Pseudomonas fluorescens) and gram-positive (B. cereus and Kocuria marina) bacteria [11]
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