Evaluation of antibacterial activity of Artemisia vulgaris extracts

Abstract

Plants have been and still are the main source of a variety of drugs. Due to this trend, there is a need to investigate plants and determine if they possess any medicinal property. In this study, medicinal compounds in the stem, root and shoot of Artemisia vulgaris were extracted sequentially via Soxhlet extract using petroleum ether, acetone and 90% ethanol on water respectively. Antimicrobial activity of these extracts was tested against Staphylococcus aureus (SA), Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Bacillus subtilis (BS) using the disc diffusion method. Whereas acetone extract exhibited high antimicrobial activity (5 mg mLG1 against B. subtilis, 25 mg mLG1 against MRSA and 5 mg mLG1 against S. aureus), the ethanol extract showed very moderate activity (25 mg mLG1 against B. subtilis 50 mg mLG1 against S. aureus and no activity against MRSA). Diminished or lack of antibacterial activity from the ethanol extract reported in this study conflicts previous studies which report higher antimicrobial activity in ethanolic extracts. Findings in this study therefore suggest that the active antimicrobial agents in A. vulgaris can be extracted better acetone than with ethanol.