engleski

Antibacterial activities of Satureja cuneifolia Ten. essential oils against Legionella pneumophila

Satureja is a genus of the well-known medicinal plant of Lamiaceae family and comprises numerous species growing wild in the Mediterranean area. Satureja cuneifolia Ten. or wild savory, is rich sources of phytochemicals biologically active. The positive effects of savory on human health are attributed to its active constituents such as essential oil and another secondary metabolites. Water distilled essential oils from aerial parts of investigation plant have been analysed by GC/FID and GC/MS using VF-5ms capillary column. The total yield of oil was 1.7%, based on dry weight of samples. Thirty two compounds were identified and they represent 96.3% of the total oil. The oil was characterized by a high concentration of oxygenated monoterpenes (71.3%) of which carvacrol (19.4%) and thymol (16.6%) being major compounds. Monoterpene hydrocarbons constituted 22.6% of which γ-terpinene (6.9%), followed oxygenated sesquiterpene (1.5%) and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (0.9%). Phenol compound, carvacrol was also identified as the major compound in the oil of S. cuneifolia from Turkey (44.9%) (Oke et al., 2009) and from Croatia (17.7%) (Bezić et al., 2009). A search of antibacterial activities the literature dealing with an effects of pure essential oils on against Legionella pneumofila resulted with only a few articles (Mondello et al., 2009 ; Chang et al., 2008). The aim of our study was to determine the in vitro activity of S. cuneifolia essential oils against L. pneumophila serogroups (SG) 1 and 2-15 and Legionella spp. from different sources, using micro-dilution, with sligh modifications, and agar diffusion method. The results showed that oil L. pneumofila is exquisitely sensitive to oil, with minimal inhibitory concetration (MIC) ranging from 0.125 to 0.5% v/v, and a bactericidal activity at 0.5% v/v. Our results suggest that wild savory oil could be active as a anti-Legionela disinfectant for control of small water system.

Satureja cuneifolia; carvacrol; thymol; Legionella pneumophila;

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