Bacterial infections cause thousands of deaths in the world every year. In most cases,
infections are more serious because the
patient is already weakened, and often, the
bacteria are already resistant to the
antibiotics used. Counterparting this negative scenario, the interest in
medicinal plants as an alternative to the synthetic antimicrobial
drugs is blossoming worldwide. In the present
work, we identified the volatile compounds of
ethanol extracts of
Melissa officinalis,
Mentha sp.,
Ocimum basilicum,
Plectranthus barbatus, and
Rosmarinus officinalis by
gas chromatography/
mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Also was evaluated antimicrobial activity of
ethanol extracts against 6
bacteria of clinical interest, and was tested the interaction of these extracts with a commercial
antibiotic streptomycin.
Phytol was a compound identified in all extracts by GC/MS, being majoritary component in
Plectranthus barbatus and
Rosmarinus officinalis. The
Gram-positive bacteria were more sensitive to
ethanol extracts, and
Plectranthus barbatus and
Rosmarinus officinalis were the most active extracts.
Ethanol extracts exhibited a synergetic effect with
streptomycin. These results encourage additional studies, in order to evaluate the possibilities of using
ethanol extracts of
Lamiaceae family as natural source for antibacterial activity.