Antimicrobial activity of extracts from exotic fruits and vegetables
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Microbiology
- Keywords
- antimicrobial, antibiotic, extract, disk diffusion, herbal, vegetable
- Copyright
- © 2017 Kirby-Lee
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Antimicrobial activity of extracts from exotic fruits and vegetables. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3373v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3373v1
Abstract
Novel sources of antimicrobial agents need to be identified to address the looming crisis of antimicrobial resistance. The overall goal of the described experiments was to determine whether extracts of exotic vegetables, mushrooms, and herbs have antimicrobial properties. Vegetable and herbal extracts were purchased from online supplier. Fresh vegetable roots and mushrooms were run through a commercially available juicer to obtain aqueous extracts. Extracts were spotted onto filter paper disks and activity assessed by measuring the zone of inhibition for both E. coli K-12 and B. subtilis as representative Gram-negative and Gram-positive organisms, respectively. Synergy testing was also performed by placing disks spotted with extracts in close proximity to one another. Amongst commercial extracts, prominent Gram-positive activity was found for Echinacea, grapefruit seed, olive leaf, and golden seal extracts; and prominent mixed Gram-negative and Gram-positive activity was found for clove extract. Amongst fresh vegetable and mushroom juicing extracts, Gram-positive activity was detected for celery root.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ