Antimicrobial activity and chemical composition screening of Epilobium montanum root

Abstract

Medical herbs have many bioactive component and they are used in microbial treatment since ancient time. The resistance of pathogen to antibiotic is became a critical problem, so novel antimicrobial agent related research is required. Epilobium montanum related antimicrobial research doesn’t exist, therefore root of this medicinal plant investigation was applied against 17 bacteria and 1 fungi by using disk diffusion method. These microbial species include Bacillus, Enterobacter, Enterococcus, Escherichia, Klebsiella, Listeria, Pseudomonas, Salmonella, Staphylococcus and Candida genera. Besides, chemical composition of this sample was determined by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy. The results were presented that E. montanum has antimicrobial activity against all tested microbial species except E. coli. Seventeen major chemical components were determined, but some composition of this sample is not match with library. For this reason, this medicinal plant contain unknown molecules and this molecules should be analysed by NMR spectra for 3D structure determination and identification.