Abstract
This study was designed to evaluate antimicrobial activity and chemical composition of four different plant essential oils i.e. Ginger oil (GiO), Black seed oil (BSO), Oregano oil (OO) and Rose oil (RO) against different bacterial and fungal strains. Anti-microbial activities of selected essential oils were determined by the microbiological technique using Agar well diffusion assay. After in vitro study, most of the essential oils showed antimicrobial activity against all the selected pathogens. Among all the tested oils, GiO showed strong antimicrobial activity. GiO showed highest antimicrobial activity against Shigella (119.79%), Enteococcus hirae (110.61%) and Escherichia coli (106.02%), when compared with the tetracycline (50 A mu g/mL) activity. However, Antifungal activity of GiO was found to be present against Candida albicans and Aspergilluas flavus, when compared with clotrimazole (50 A mu g/mL) activity. Among all the selected bacteria, BSO showed maximum antimicrobial activity against the E. coli followed by Citrobacter freundii. Moreover, BSO had highest zone of inhibition against the C. ablicans (33.58%). OO indicated that, Shigella had the highest sensitivity (12.6 +/- 0.58, 131.25%), followed by E. hirae (19.1 +/- 0.61, 96.46%) and Salmonella typhi (15.2 +/- 0.27, 83.06%) when compared with tetracycline activity. OO showed poor sensitivity against all the selected fungal strains. Furthermore, Gas Chromatography analysis revealed that, Gingerol (10.86%) was the chief chemical constituents found in GiO followed by alpha-Sesquiphellandrene (6.29%), Zingiberene (5.88%). While, BSO, OO and RO had higher percentage of p-Cymene (6.90%), Carvacrol (15.87%) and Citronellol (8.07%) respectively. The results exhibited that the essential oils used for this study was the richest source for antimicrobial activity which indicates the presence of broad spectrum antimicrobial compounds in these essential oils. Hence, essential oils and their components can be recommended for therapeutic purposes as source of an alternative medicine.