Abstract

  Antimicrobial activity of four edible plantextracts including ginger, galangal, lemongrass and tree basil have been investigated. For this purpose, the extract of plants was acquired using ethanol and distilled water. The inhibitory effect on six skin infection pathogenic microorganisms, i.e., Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Propionibacterium acnes and Candida albicans were performed by disc diffusion, agar well diffusion and microdilution methods. From the results, ethanolic extract of galangal showed the best antimicrobial activities against all test pathogens in terms of the minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration, ranging from 0.49-15.62 mg/ml and 0.49-62.5 mg/ml, respectively. Therefore, the aqueous extract has lower antimicrobial activity compared with the ethanolic extract. The ethanolic extracts of ginger, galangal, and lemongrass could inhibit P. acnes at the concentrations lower than 1 mg/ml. The outcome of this study suggested that edible plant extracts could possibly be applied as a natural antimicrobial agent and combined with other materials for further applications.

Keywords: Edible Plant, Extract, Antimicrobial Activity, Skin Infection Pathogens