African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 6 (6), pp. 771-776, 19 March 2007   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2007 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Susceptibility of some multiple resistant bacteria to garlic extract

Muhsin A. Jabar¹* and Amina Al-Mossawi²

¹Microbilogy Department, College of Medicine, University of Kerbala, Iraq.

²School of Pharmacy, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K.

*Corresponding authors E-mail: drmuhsin_jabar@yahoo.co.uk.

Accepted 19 January, 2007

Historically, garlic (Allium sativum) has been found to possess many therapeutic properties including antimicrobial, antineoplastic, anticardiovascular, immuno-stimulatory and hypoglycaemic activities. Its antimicrobial activity is attributed to its key component allicin, which is rapidly synthesised from its precursor when garlic is crushed. This study assesses the antibacterial potentiality of garlic using mod-ern microplate-based antibacterial assays. To evaluate the potency of raw garlic juice, various extracts (n-hexane, dichloromethane, methanol and water) and commercial preparations of garlic were screened. Three types of assay were performed using different garlic extracts: disc diffusion, checkerboard and resazurin. The results from fresh garlic were promising. However, none of the three commercial preparations tested had any significant activity.

Key words:  Garlic, Allicin, Antimicrobial Agents, Resazurin assay.