Abstract

Hussain MA, Khan MQ, Alam NM, Hussain N, Habib T and Awan MA

Wild and cultivated olive has been used in the treatment of many diseases ethnopharmacologically in Pakistan. In the present manuscript we have demonstrated the antimicrobial effects of various fractions of leaves of Olea cuspidata and Olea europaea. The leaves of O. cuspidata Wall and O. europaea L. (Family: Oleaceae) were extracted successively with four different organic solvents. These crude extracts were assessed for antibacterial activities against eight different bacterial human pathogens that is, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiela pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, Citrobacter freundii and Streptococcus pneumoniae by using disc diffusion method. The chloroform, ethanol, and methanol crude extracts of leaves of wild and cultivated olive had significant antimicrobial activities on all the bacterial strains tested. The standard reference antibiotic discs, Ciprofloxacin (5 µg) and Erythrocin (30 µg) were used as positive control. The capacity of the extracts and antibiotics were evaluated on the basis of their capacity to inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria measured as zone of inhibition. Almost all bacteria showed to be sensible against the antibiotics with the value of zone of inhibition ranging from 25 to 35 mm, while the effectiveness of olive leaves extracts varied from one species to other with zone of inhibition values of 10 to 30 mm. The ethanol and methanol crude extracts of leaves of wild and cultivated olive exhibited prominent activities against all bacteria used in comparison to chloroform extract which had moderate activity against the tested bacteria. Petroleum ether extract have no effect on any of the bacteria tested. Extract obtained with ethanol appeared to be the most effective against all pathogenic bacteria compared to those obtained with other solvents.