Antibacterial and Antifungal Activities of Arum maculatum L. Leaves Extracts

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of three extracts of the leaves of the Arum maculatum L. plant belonging to the Aroidae family collected from Kahramanmaraş, Turkey. Many efforts have been made to discover new antimicrobial compounds from a variety of sources such as micro-organisms, animals and plants. One such source is folk medicine. Systematic screening of them may result in the discovery of novel effective compounds.These extracts were first prepared with petroleum ether, methanol and ethyl acetate solvents by Soxhlet extraction. The antimicrobial activity of the extracts was then assessed using the agar-well diffusion method against gram-positive, gram-negative bacteria, and yeast and moulds. All extracts of Arum maculatum L. showed good activity against some type of bacteria (Bacillus cereus, Micrococcus luteus, Pseudomonas phaseolicola, Yersinia enterocolitica and Enterobacter aerogenes) and a mold (Aspergillus niger). The activity was compared with known antibiotics such as vancomycine, tetracycline and amphotericin B.