Antimicrobial efficacy of fruit extracts of two Piper species against selected bacterial and oral fungal pathogens

Kamal Rai Aneja^I; Radhika Joshi^II; Chetan Sharma^II; Ashish Aneja^III

^IPhD, Professor and Chairman, Department of Microbiology, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India
^IIMSc, Research Scholar, Department of Microbiology, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India
^IIIMBBS, Medical Officer, Haryana Government, Posted Tarori (Karnal), India

Correspondence to

ABSTRACT

AIM: To assess the antimicrobial efficacy of five solvent extracts of two Piper species commonly used in diet and traditional medicine, P. cubeba and P. longum, against selected bacterial and oral fungal pathogens i.e. Streptococcus mutans, Staphylococcus aureus, Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
METHODS: The antimicrobial activity of five extracts of cubeb berries and Indian long pepper fruits was determined by the agar well diffusion method. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for the acetonic, methanolic and ethanolic extracts was determined by the modified agar well diffusion method.
RESULTS: Of the 5 fruit extracts evaluated, acetone, ethanol and methanol extracts of both the Piper spp. were found to have variable antimicrobial activities against all the four oral pathogens. The acetonic fruit extract of P. cubeba was the most effective against both the yeasts with the highest zone of inhibition (15.31 mm) against C. albicans followed by the methanolic (12.31 mm) and ethanolic (11.94 mm) extracts. C. albicans was found to be most sensitive pathogen, which survived up to 6.25 mg/mL in the acetonic extract (MIC = 12.5 mg/mL) followed by the methanolic and ethanolic extracts (MIC = 25 mg/mL). The acetonic, methanolic and ethanolic extracts of P. longum fruits showed almost equal inhibition zones of both yeasts, ranging between 10.64 and 14 mm. C. albicans survived up to 12.5 mg/mL (MIC= 25 mg/mL) while S.cerevisiae survived up to 25 mg/mL (MIC = 50 mg/mL).
CONCLUSIONS: The crude extracts obtained from the fruits of the two Piper spp. may be used to treat oral fungal species, especially C. albicans, as they produced larger inhibition zones than antifungal drugs often used to treat these pathogens.

Keywords: oral pathogens, Piper cubeba, Piper longum, antibacterial or antifungal activity, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to our Honorable Vice Chancellor, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra for providing us the infrastructure in the Department of Microbiology. We would like to thank Dr. B.D.Vashishta, Department of Botany, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, for helping with the identification of the fruit samples. We are thankful to Dr. Tapan Chakrabarti, Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, for providing the microbial cultures.

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Correspondence to: ]]> Radhika Joshi
Department of Microbiology,
Kurukshetra University,
Kurukshetra- 136119, Haryana, India.
Phone: 09355566163
E- mail: joshi_radhika31282@yahoo.com
radhikasharma31282@gmail.com

Received for publication: February 7, 2010
Accepted: June 22, 2010