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Abstract
The aim of this study is to investigate the antioxidant activity and the antibacterial efficiency of the essential oil extracted by hydrodistillation from leaves of Origanum vulgare against ten (10) clinical strains of Escherichia coli and a reference strain E. coli ATCC provided by the laboratory of microbiology, faculty of medicine, University of Badji Mokhtar (Annaba, Algeria). The chemical composition of the essential oil was characterized by gas chromatography-Mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). Antioxidant activity was evaluated by radical scavenging ability (DPPH method). The antibacterial activity was detected by using disc-diffusion method and the agar dilution method which used for microbial growth inhibition at various concentrations of oil (calculating the minimum inhibitory concentration). The yield of essential oil of O.vulgare was 1.15 % and the major compounds were thymol (32.58 %), γ-terpinen (18.76 %), durenol (17.92 %) and durene (11.40 %). The essential oil showed an antioxidant activity (IC50 = 1.28±0.07 mg/ml) which was lower than the standard antioxidants (ascorbic acid and BHT). It showed a very effective bactericidal activity towards all tested bacterial strains with maximal inhibition zones in the range of 21.3-32.6 mm and a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ranging from 0.314 to 0.628 mg/ ml.