Mining the Indigenous Fruit Trees of Mindanao for Essentials Oils with Antibacterial Activity

Abstract

Indigenous fruit trees are underutilized local resources but of great interest as potential sources of new chemical entities for drug discovery. In this work, the antimicrobial potential of essential oils (EOs) extracted from indigenous fruit trees of Mindanao was evaluated. Thirty-four (34) fruit trees were screened for the presence of EOs using the Clevenger apparatus for hydrodistillation. EOs were subjected to disk diffusion assay for antibacterial evaluation. The result showed that Lansium domesticum (lanzones) leaves, L. domesticum (lanzones) pericarp, Psidium guajava (bayabas) leaves, and Citrus maxima (pomelo) pericarp yielded a significant amount of EOs. The said EOs were shown to inhibit the growth of B. subtilis and E. coli. However, only EOs from P. guajava leaves inhibited the growth of three other bacteria namely S. aureus, S. enteretica and P. pseudomonas. The EOs from these plants may further be investigated as potential drug candidates against microbial drug resistance. Moreover, these EOs could be combined for possible synergistic action to maximize their antimicrobial potential.