Abstract
Traditional medicine has a key role in health care worldwide. Obtaining scientific information about the efficacy and safety of the wild plants grown in western Mediterranean coast of Egypt is one of our research goals. In this study, 10 wild plants namely Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, Blackiella aellen, Arthrocnemon glaucum, Atriplex halimus, Thymelaea hirsute, Carduus getulus, Nicotiana glauca,Alhagi maurorum, Atractylis carduus and Echinops spinosissimus were collected from El-Hammam, Burg El Arab and Bahig regions located along the Western Mediterranean coast of Egypt. Hexane and methanol extracts of fresh aerial parts ofthe plants were screened in vitro for antimicrobial activity against 15 Gram positive and negative pathogenic bacteria. Both methanol and hexane plant extracts showed strong antibacterial activity against at least two pathogenic microorganisms tested. However, hexane extracts generally showed lower activity against microorganisms compared to methanol extracts. The microorganisms’ susceptibility to different extracts did not correlate with the susceptibility or resistance to a particular antibiotic. The results of this study thus support the medical usage of the studied plants and suggest that some of these plants possess antimicrobial properties that can be used to cure infectious diseases. Key words: Egyptian wild plants, antagonism, biological control, phytochemicals, multi-drug resistant.
Highlights
Plants could be described as a wonderful kitchen or chemical cabinets filled with attractive things
Considering that there are not many data on biotic activity of the identified medicinal plants growing naturally in El Hammam area, the objective of this study was to investigate the antibacterial properties of 10 plant namely Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, Blackiella aellen, Arthrocnemon glaucum, Atriplex halimus, Thymelaea hirsute, Carduus getulus, Nicotiana glauca, Alhagi maurorum, Atractylis carduus and Echinops spinosissimus, as well as to estimate whether some extracts of these plants could potentially be used in the control of selected pathogenic microorganisms
In some cases, increasing the concentration of specific plant extract resulted in higher antimicrobial activity against specific indicator microorganism
Summary
Plants could be described as a wonderful kitchen or chemical cabinets filled with attractive things. The development of bacterial resistance to presently available antibiotics has necessitated the search for new antibacterial agents. It has been observed that many plants contain one or more chemical substances with antimicrobial activities. Powell and Ko (1986) reported that root extract of Allium sativum inhibited germination of chlamydospores and encysted zoospores of Phytophthora palmivora in soil. These antimicrobial substances are of a natural origin, and it is thought that their influences on the environment are few and can be used as biological control agents. Taking into account the increasing demand for natural ingredients that might be used as
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