Exploring the spectrum of antimicrobial activity from native North American prairie plants

Abstract

For the past three years this lab has been investigating the use of North American prairie plants as sources of natural preservatives and antimicrobial compounds for use in personal care products. The experimental approach was to perform a simple agar-disk assay against a Gram positive bacteria from crude plant extracts. Compounds isolated from active fractions were then quantitatively assayed against Gram positive bacteria to determine their EC50 values. Commercial topical antibiotics (trioclosan) and preservatives (parabens) EC50 values were determined for the same assay and compared to the isolated plant compounds. To be effective antimicrobials and preservatives compounds must display an array of antimicrobial activity. We have expanded our antimicrobial assay to include organisms associated with non-sterile commercial personal care products (E.coli, C.albicans, A. niger, P. aeruginosa and S. aureus.). This presentation will discuss the spectrum of efficacy of compounds isolated from J. virginiana and P. argophylla against the aforementioned microorganisms.