Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi are foodborne pathogens that can cause serious illnesses if ingested, such as fever, nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhea. Therefore, it’s important to find new natural antibacterial agents to face such pathogenic bacteria. The antibacterial activity of organic extract of some medicinal plants collected from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was tested against two pathogenic bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi. The extracts were prepared using ethanol, methanol, diethyl ether and petroleum ether. Methanol was the greatest efficient solvent for extracting the antibacterial compounds from tested plants. Syzygium aromaticum showed the highest antibacterial effect followed by Rosmarinus officinalis, Cinnamon umverum, Commiphora myrrha, Brassica nigra, Curcuma longa, Ferula assa-foetida and Alpinia officinarum. The MICs of the extracts recorded were variety from 0.5 to 4.0 mg/mL.

Key words: antibacterial activity, medicinal plants, food poisoning, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi