Background: Nowadays there is a need to find naturally occurring substances from plants with antimicrobial activity as an alternative to
available used antibiotics.
Materials and Methods: Salvadora persica
(miswak) and
Commiphora gileadensis
were collected, dried and extracted with either methanol or
warm water and the obtained extracts were assessed for their antibacterial activity against 5 different genera of bacteria using agar well diffusion
method. The tested bacteria included some human pathogens.
Results: The obtained extracts exhibited considerable inhibitory effects against all the tested bacteria with various degrees of growth inhibition. It
was shown that methanol extract was more effective compared to water extracts. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of the methanol
extracts ranged from 50-100 μg/ml. No toxicity was found using
Artimia salina
as test organism and no antitumor activity against Ehrlich ascites
carcinoma.
Conclusion: S. persica and
C. gileadensis showed moderate to high inhibitory activity on pathogenic bacteria with no toxicity and can be used
traditionally as alternative medicine
