Análise antibacteriana de extratos vegetais frente à Escherichia coli

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Professionals use plants with medicinal properties to treat, cure and prevent important diseases. Plants such as hibiscus, rosemary, parsley and garlic are alternatives in the fight against urinary tract infections, especially those caused by Escherichia coli. OBJECTIVE: To determine the antibacterial potential of plant extracts against Escherichia coli bacteria for the treatment of urinary tract infections. METHODOLOGY: Through the infusion of dry plant materials in an aqueous medium, the active plant extract was obtained to analyze it’s antibacterial potential, while for garlic it was necessary to squeeze and crush it to obtain the active extract. Standardized strains of Escherichia coli ATCC 8739 were used, which were diluted in Nutrient Broth medium until turbidity was 0.5 on the McFarland scale (1.5 x 108 Colony Forming Units - CFU/mL) and inoculated in Petri dishes containing Müeller Hinton Agar using the Spread-Plate technique. The entire process was performed in duplicate, where the extracts were submitted to the plates using the disk technique with 15 µL of the solutions, in which a blank disk was used as a negative control and, as a positive control, commercial disks containing 50 µg of Meropenem. RESULTS: The extracts of hibiscus, parsley and rosemary did not inhibit bacterial growth satisfactorily. Garlic, however, presented better results than the positive control with Meropenem. CONCLUSIONS: Garlic proved to be effective in inhibiting the growth of Escherichia coli, while other plants require further studies to evaluate the factors that resulted in unsatisfactory values