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South African food and medicinal plant extracts as potential antimicrobial food agents

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Abstract

Many South African plants are used as both foods and traditional medicines for the treatment of diarrhoea and dysentery. A survey of edible plants for natural preservative/functional food potential was undertaken on native South African plants with a history of medicinal usage. Sixty six extracts from 29 plant species were investigated for the ability to inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi associated with food spoilage and food poisoning. Of these, 27 of the 29 plant species tested (93.1 %) inhibited the growth of at least one of the Gram-negative bacteria tested, compared with 23 of the 29 (79.3 %) plants tested inhibiting the growth of at least one Gram-positive bacterium, and seven of the 29 (24.1 %) plants tested inhibiting the growth of at least one fungal species. In general, the methanol plant extracts were better antimicrobial agents than the water extracts, as determined by the disc diffusion minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) method. Syzygium cordatum, Terminalia pruinoides and Terminalia sericea extracts were particularly effective, with broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity and MIC values generally significantly below 1000 μg/ml. Extracts of these plants were generally more potent antimicrobial agents than the control antibiotics, with significantly lower MIC values. All extracts exhibiting bacterial and fungal inhibitory activity were also shown to be non-toxic, or of low toxicity in the Artemia nauplii bioassay. The low toxicity of these extracts and their inhibitory bioactivity against bacteria and fungi associated with food spoilage/poisoning indicate their potential as natural food preservatives.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Andrew Hankey, Chief Botanist at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens in Johannesburg, South Africa for providing and identifying the plant materials used in these studies. We thank the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa for provision of infrastructure to carry out the research. Financial support was provided by the National Research Foundation (South Africa) incentive rating grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Futures Centre, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Rd, Nathan Campus, Nathan, Queensland, 4111, Australia

    I. E. Cock

  2. Biomolecular and Physical Sciences, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Rd, Nathan Campus, Nathan, Queensland, 4111, Australia

    I. E. Cock

  3. Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Parktown, South Africa

    S. F. van Vuuren

Authors
  1. I. E. Cock
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  2. S. F. van Vuuren
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Correspondence to I. E. Cock.

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Ian Edwin Cock holds a Ph.D., Griffith University

Sandy van Vuuren holds a Ph.D., Witwatersrand University

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Cock, I.E., van Vuuren, S.F. South African food and medicinal plant extracts as potential antimicrobial food agents. J Food Sci Technol 52, 6879–6899 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-015-1806-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-015-1806-3

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