Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology

Antibacterial activity of Sri Lankan tea samples against MRSA, E. coli and Mycobacterium smegmatis

World Congress on Pharmacology

July 20-22, 2015 Brisbane, Australia

P D Abeysinghe1, William McCully2, L Baillie2 and A White2

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: Clin Exp Pharmacol

Abstract:

Tea is one of the most important industries which contribute to the gross national product (GNP) of Sri Lanka. In order to investigate the one of the health effects of drinking Sri Lankan black and green tea, antimicrobial activity of Gram (+) Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Gram (?) Escherichia coli, and Gram (?) acid fast bacterium Mycobacterium smegmatis was carried out using tea infusions as well as polar and non polar fractions. Out of the tea samples tested green tea showed the higher antibacterial activity for both MRSA and M. smegmatis on agar plates incorporated with different dilutions on tea infusions. However, none of the infusions showed antibacterial activity against E. coli. Followed by green tea, oolong and black tea samples also showed considerable antibacterial activity against both MRSA and M. smegmatis. Polar and non-polar (hexane, pet-ether, diethyl ether, ethyl acetate and methanol) sequential Soxhlet crude extracts of selected black and green tea samples were separated on Thin Layer chromatographic (TLC) plates using different solvent systems. Antibacterial activities of the separated chemicals were tested on the TLC plates which were covered with MRSA and M. smegmatis suspensions separately. Bio-autography was carried out using p-iodonitrotetrazolium on TLC plates and observed antibacterial activities for both species. This study showed that Sri Lankan black and green tea have antibacterial effect on Gram (+) MRSA and Gram (?) acid fast bacterium M. smegmatis. As a future prospective, active compound/s is being isolated and structure determination is carried out.