RESEARCH ARTICLE
Inhibition of Growth of Highly Resistant Bacterial and Fungal Pathogens by a Natural Product
Rand R Hafidh1, 2, Ahmed S Abdulamir2, 3, Law Se Vern4, Fatimah Abu Bakar4, *, Faridah Abas4, Fatemeh Jahanshiri5, Zamberi Sekawi6
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 5
First Page: 96
Last Page: 106
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-5-96
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801105010096
Article History:
Received Date: 4/6/2011Revision Received Date: 24/6/2011
Acceptance Date: 28/6/2011
Electronic publication date: 16/8/2011
Collection year: 2011

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The continuous escalation of resistant bacteria against a wide range of antibiotics necessitates discovering novel unconventional sources of antibiotics. B. oleracea L (red cabbage) is health-promoting food with proven anticancer and anti-inflammatory activities. However, it has not been researched adequately for its antimicrobial activity on potential resistant pathogens. The methanol crude extract of B. oleracea L. was investigated for a possible anti-microbial activity. The screening method was conducted using disc diffusion assay against 22 pathogenic bacteria and fungi. It was followed by evaluation of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Moreover, the antibacterial and the antifungal activities were confirmed using the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) and the minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC), respectively. Remarkable, antibacterial activity was evident particularly against highly infectious microorganisms such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium as well as against human fungal pathogens, Trichophyton rubrum and Aspergillus terreus. Red cabbage is a rich source of phenolic compounds, anthocyanins being the most abundant class, which might explain its potent antimicrobial action. This extract is potentially novel for future antimicrobials, inexpensive, and readily available at a large scale for pharmaceutical companies for further investigation and processing.