Natural Product Radiance, Vol. 6(2), 2007, pp.114-121 Research Article Antioxidant and antibacterial investigations on essential oils and acetone extracts of some spicesÜ Gurdip Singh1*, Sumitra Maurya3, Palanisamy Marimuthu4, H S Murali2 and A S Bawa2 1Chemistry Department, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur- 273 009, Uttar Pradesh, India 2Defence Food Research Laboratory, Mysore- 570 011, Karnataka, India 3 Agharkar Research Institute, Pune-411 004, Maharashtra, India 4 Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi- 110 012, India †Part 49 *Correspondent author, E-mail:
[email protected] Phone: 91-551-2200745 (R) 2202856 (O); Fax: 91-551-2340459; Received 7 April 2006; Accepted 11 September 2006 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 Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus cereus, B. subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus 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 Ajwain 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 diffusion and dilution of the test substance 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, in a microbiological medium.