ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF CLOVES SEEDS OF Syzygium aromaticum and Cinnamon Cinnamomum verum BARK ESSENTIAL OILS

Abstract

The study was conducted between January and June 2017 at the Biotechnology Research Center/Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq.
The antibacterial activity of the clove and cinnamon plant essential oils were evaluated by the disc diffusion method against five pathogens including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus spp. and Acinetobacter spp. Sterile paper discs of 5 mm diameter were dipped aseptically in an appropriate concen-tration of essential oils and placed over Mueller–Hinton plates inoculated with pathogens. The best effect of the antibacterial activity of clove oil was observed on Acinetobacter spp. and the least was noted on Escherichia coli. Cinnamon essential oil showed the strongest antibacterial effect on all the five pathogens. On Escherichia coli, the zone of inhibition was 32mm at 1:2 dilution and minimum zone of inhibition was 28 mm at 1:8 dilution. On staphy-lococcus aureus as a representative of Gram-positive bacteria, the zone of inhibition was 30mm at 1:2 dilution and minimum zone of inhibition were 10 mm at 1:4 dilution.
The antibiotics TS (Trimethoprim), T (Tetracycline), E (Erythromycin), CIF (Ciprofloxacin) FOX (Cefoxitin)), SAM (Ampicillin) and NA (Nalidixic) were used in this study to get some results for comparing their effect with the clove and cinnamon oils. The effect of the clove essential oil is higher than the effect of antibiotics used against the Acinetobacter spp. The results of this study confirm that cinnamon is more active than clove and more potent than all antibiotics used against all tested bacteria.