Antibacterial activity of aqueous and methanol extracts of pleurotus ostreatus

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance claims atleast 1.27 million lives including about 214,000 newborns (Ventola, 2015). Since a decade ago, the capacity of pathogenic bacteria to develop resistance against several antimicrobial drugs has increased significantly due to the misuse of antibiotics (Ventola, 2015).Unfortunately, there is poor efficacy of synthetic antimicrobials to fight multi drug resistant strains. Pleurotus ostreatus has attracted significant interest in the search for pharmacological compounds, however, at the present, scarce reports for example (Chowdhury, 2015, Pauliuc et al., 2013) have documented on its antibacterial properties. Aim: research determined the efficacy and minimum inhibitory concentration of aqueous and methanol extracts of Pleurotus ostreatus on Staphylococcus aureus as well as the phytochemical composition of the macro fungus. Methodology: Preparation of Pleurotus ostreatus aqueous and methanol extracts, bacterial culture isolation and identification, screening for phytochemicals were done according to standard methods while antibacterial screening was carried out by agar well diffusion technique. Results: The preliminary phytochemical analysis of the extracts showed the occurrence of active compounds in varying amounts such as Alkaloids, Reducing compounds, saponins and flavonoids. Pleurotus ostreatus displayed varying degrees of inhibition on the Staphylococcus aureus. Methanol extracts had good antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus compared aqueous extracts as indicated by the mean diameter of inhibition zones. Conclusion: the results show the potential of Pleurotus ostreatus extract as a good therapeutic agent and food supplement. It could find applications as dietary supplements and possibly as alternative antibacterial agents.