Abstract

Antibacterial Activity of Two Lebanese Plants: Eryngium creticum and Centranthus longiflorus

Makki R, Dirani ZE, Rammal H, Sweidan A, Al bazzal A and Ali Chokr

Lebanon is one of many countries that are famous in their natural wealth and wide diversity. And due to the limited research regarding the traditional medicine worldwide, we aimed to conduct a study, for the first time, on two Lebanese plants: Eryngium creticum and Centranthus longiflorus L., in order to evaluate the antibacterial activity of the aqueous and ethanolic extracts of the different plant parts, during two harvesting periods, on five bacterial strains: Gram-positive and Gram-negative. It was observed that the aqueous extract showed a stronger antibacterial activity against S. epidermidis than the ethanolic extract in both plants and during the two harvesting periods. Regarding the Gramnegative bacteria, E. coli was highly resistant where it was not inhibited by E. creticum during the first period, however P. aeruginosa showed an alternating resistance and was stronger in the second period for E. creticum and in both periods for C. longiflorus. Further research studies need to be conducted in order to confirm the antibacterial effects of these two Lebanese plants.