Author(s):

Shendurse AM, Sangwan RB, Amit Kumar, Ramesh V, Patel AC, Gopikrishna G and Roy SK

Abstract: The phytochemicals detected in lemongrass leaves essential oil were flavonoids, tannins, saponins, steroids, terpenoids and coumarins. The antibacterial activity of lemongrass leaves essential oil was tested against six potential pathogens by agar well diffusion method and the results depicted that lemongrass essential oil generated the inhibition zones of 32.0±0.75, 48.0±1.05 and 21.0±0.64 mm against all three gram positive pathogens viz. Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus cereus, respectively, whereas Proteus vulgaris was the only gram negative pathogenic bacteria against which a zone of inhibition of 23.0±0.73 mm was reported and no inhibition zone was observed for Pseudomonas aeruginosa as well as Escherichia coli. The zone of inhibition produced by lemongrass oil against Bacillus subtilis was significantly (P<0.05) higher, followed by Staphylococcus aureus, Proteus vulgaris and Bacillus cereus. Moreover, it was observed that the zone of inhibition produced by lemongrass oil against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Proteus vulgaris were significantly (P<0.05) higher than the corresponding inhibition zones produced by the antibiotic i.e. Azithromycin (200 mg/ 5 ml) suspension (positive control) while non-significant differences were observed in case of Bacillus cereus.

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