Antimicrobial activity of essential oils extracted from clove and lemongrass against pathogenic bacteria isolated from bovine, swine and poultry feces

The objective was to verify the antibacterial activity of lemongrass and clove oils against Escherichia coli isolated from poultry feces, Staphylococcus aureus isolated from swine and poultry feces and Salmonella sp. isolated from swine and bovine feces. The antimicrobial activity was evaluated by the disc diffusion test using different concentrations of the oils: 160, 80, 40, 20 and 10 mu l ml(-1). The multi-resistance of strains relative to that of conventional antimicrobials was also evaluated by the disk diffusion technique, using Multiple Antibiotic Resistance (MAR) index. The oils were characterized based on the results of chromatographic analyses, of which, analysis of lemongrass has been previously published (AZEVEDO et al., 2016). Lemongrass and clove essential oils presented citral and eugenol as the major compound, respectively. The concentrations of the essential oils had a significant effect on the extent of the growth inhibition halo and the coefficient of determination (r(2)) was higher than 0.80. Clove essential oil generated the largest zone of inhibition when tested against Escherichia coli and S. aureus from poultry feces and Salmonella sp. from the feces of swine, while lemongrass essential oil presented better results against S. aureus isolated from swine feces and Salmonella sp. from bovine feces. S. aureus and Salmonella sp. were multi-resistant to the antimicrobials tested. It is concluded that the essential oils tested have antimicrobial activity against bacteria isolated from bovine, swine, and poultry feces and that this activity is proportional to the concentration of oils and the microorganisms studied.