<b>Antioxidant and antibacterial investigations on essential oils and acetone extracts of some spices</b>

Abstract

The studies on antioxidant and antibacterial potential of essential/volatile oils and acetone extracts of various spices are presented in this paper. The antibacterial activity of the volatile oils and acetone extracts of anise,ajwain, tejpat, Chinese Cassia bark, fennel, coriander, dill, turmeric and star anise have been studied against <i>Escherichia coli</i>, <i>Salmonella </i><b> </b><i>typhi</i>, <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>, <i>Bacillus cereus</i>, <i>B. subtilis</i> and <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> by disc diffusion and plate count methods. The results showed that volatile oils and extracts varied in their bioactivity. The volatile oils of ajwain, tejpat, Chinese Cassia bark and coriander were found to possess excellent activity against all the Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial strains tested. These volatile oils and extracts are equally or more effective when compared with standard antibiotics even at very low concentration. However, the acetone extract was found to be less effective as compared to volatile oils. Antioxidant activity of the oils and extracts were studied by DPPH, reducing power, conjugated diene and chelating effect assays. They exerted concentration dependent antioxidant activity in all the tested assays.