Abstract

ESSENTIAL OILS OF CITRUS BERGAMIA AS ANTIBACTERIAL AGENTS AGAINST SOME HUMAN PATHOGENIC BACTERIA

Dr. Vijay Nigam*, Dr. Sukhwant Singh, Bhagyashri Gupta, Aakansha Singh

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 Citrus bergamia bung against ten human pathogenic bacteria were evaluated. Chemical compositions of essential oil were analyzed by gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method. Antibacterial act ivity 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 Citrus bergamia 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 Citrus bergamia bung is a suitable plant drug against human pathogenic bacteria.

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