Antibacterial Activities of Extracts of Cinnamomum Cassia and Xylopia aethiopica on Clinical Pathogens.

Abstract

The study was conducted to investigate the antibacterial activities of the mixture of extracts of Cinnamomum cassia and Xylopia aethiopica against seven clinical bacterial isolates Bacillus subtilis, Streptococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Shigella dysenteriae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa using the Agar well diffusion method. In addition, the possible synergistic effects when associated with antibiotics were studied. The preliminary phytochemical screening revealed the presence of cardiac glycoside, flavonoids, phlobatannins, tannins, saponin and steroids in varying concentrations. The combined ethanol extracts of S. cassia and X. aethiopica at all concentrations showed no antibacterial activity against S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, K. pneumoniae, S. faecalis and E. coli. However, at a concentration of 50mg/ml - 150mg/ml the extracts inhibited the growth of S. dysenteriae and B. subtilis. The combined ethanol extracts of S. cassia and water extract of X. aethiopica only had moderate antibacterial activity against S. dysenteriae and B. subtilis .The antibiotics in this study had low to very high inhibitory effects on the bacteria species tested except Ampicillin that had no effect on  P. aeruginosa. The combined effect of ethanol extracts of S. cassia and X. aethiopica showed no synergistic effect on all tested organisms; the combined effect of ethanol extract of S. cassia and X. aethiopica also showed no synergistic effect on all tested organisms

Keywords: Cinnamomum cassia, Xylopia aethiopica, antibiotics, pathogens and Synergism.