Saussurea costus ekstraktlarinin antibakteriyel ve antifungal etkinliklerinin araştirilmasi

Infectious diseases are a serious danger to public health, and they will continue to be one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity around the globe, especially due to the ability of microorganisms to develop resistance to available antimicrobial agents. Plants may be a potential source for novel antimicrobial agents. In the current study, the antibacterial and antifungal activity of the essential oil, hexane-chloroform, methanolic, and aqueous extracts of Saussurea costus (S. costus) root were evaluated against S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, S. epidermidis, E. cloacae, E. faecalis, K. pneumonia, A. baumannii, E. coli, and C. albicans. For this evaluation, disc diffusion and micro-dilution susceptibility assays were performed. Chemical analysis was also performed to determine phytochemical constituents of the extracts. Our results showed that the essential oil and methanolic extract of S. costus root exhibited the highest antimicrobial activity, followed by hexane-chloroform extract, with aqueous extract showing the lowest activity. The highest activity with the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value was recorded as 3.12 μl/ml for the essential oil (against S. epidermidis and C. albicans), 3.12 mg/ml for the methanolic extract (against S. aureus), and 6.25 mg/ml for both hexane-chloroform and aqueous extracts (against S. aureus). In general, the tested extracts had moderate to good antimicrobial activity against the tested gram-positive bacteria and C. albicans as a representative fungal microorganism. However, most tested gram-negative bacteria had week or no susceptibility to the extracts. Hence, S. costus root can be considered as a potential natural source of antimicrobial agents to fight the global burden of antimicrobial resistant pathogens.