Phytochemical and antimicrobial activity of acacia ehrenbergiana hayne (salam) as a grazing herb against some animal pathogens

Abstract

Since the beginning of human civilization many herbs have so far been used for the treatment and management of various ailments. Spreading of bacterial resistance against antibiotics is consider one of the common problems in the medical world, so one of the most important steps in microbiological researches is to find a new antimicrobial compound with minimal side effects. One of wild herbs was Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne commonly known as Salam, which was used as animal grazing herb especially camels, sheep and goat. Due to that it seems that this plant may contain considerable antimicrobial capacity. So the aim of this study is to investigate the antimicrobial activity of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne aqueous extracts on some medically important animal pathogens and to determine some phytochemical compounds. Hot and cold aqueous extract of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity against some medically important pathogens isolated from animals and poultry farms (Staphylococcus epidermis, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pyogens, Pseudomonas aerogenes, Salmonella typhimurium, Enterococcus, Bacillus cereus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Candida albicans) by agar well diffusion method. Both hot and cold aqueous extract showed high antibacterial effect against the all examined pathogenic bacteria samples. While the extracts did not show any significant antifungal activity against Candida albicans. Also, phytochemical compoud of aqueous extract was determined, results of the chemical tests explain the extracts of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne contain alkaloids, flavnoids, tannins and saponin compounds. So it could be concluded that the Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne extract possess remarkable antibacterial activity against gram positive and gram negative bacteria and to be introduced as an alternative to chemical antimicrobial drugs, is required wider investigation.