Antimicrobial activity of phenolic extracts and essential oil from Thymelaea hirsuta

Abstract

In the current study, the antimicrobial activity of aqueous extract,organic solvents (petroleum ether, dichloromethane, methanol and ethanol extracts) as well as the essential oil of Thymelaea hirsuta was evaluated on various strains of dermal bacteria and fungi. Screening of phytochemicals was also carried out in order to determine the secondary metabolites available in the mixture (leaf / flower) of the plant. The activities of the T. hirsuta extracts were determined by diffusion method in agar medium for the bacteria and the direct contact procedure for the fungi for.The results obtained showed that all the extracts had an inhibitory activity on the growth of bacteria S. aureus and P. aeruginosa. The essential oil obtained by hydrodistillation showed the greatest influence on these strains. In addition, the antifungal activities of these extracts caused a short duration of the fungus activity (Microsporum audouinii, Microsporum gypseum and Trichophyton rubrum) and this effect depended on the concentrations of the extracts applied. The level of inhibition was also found to vary with procedure of the extraction used. Overall, the studied extracts have the potential to be used as antimi-crobial agents against the tested microbes.