Potential for Moringa oleifera oil and powder as an antibacterial product against gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Pseudomonas fluorescens)

Abstract

The development of novel treatments for bacterial infections is of growing importance to tackle the consequences of increasing antibiotic and multi-drug resistance. The current literature shows Moringa oleifera belonging to the Moringaceae family, has promise as an antibacterial agent so both oil and powder forms were tested against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Abdallah et al., 2023). The antibacterial activity of M. oleifera, was determined using disc diffusion assays on agar plates for all three bacterial strains, where no inhibition halos were present in the experimental conditions. Ethanol (95%) and water were used with the aim of extracting the active ingredients from the powder form in suspension over 7 days to examine antibacterial potential where at some conditions the M. oleifera appeared to act as a nutrient broth. Following completion of laboratory time available for this study, repeats could not be run to further explore the promising results seen and so the significance of any effect M. oleifera has on these bacterial strains requires further testing. Within the limitations of this study, it has been determined that M. oleifera leaf extract powder or oil has no antibacterial properties against E. coli, P. fluorescens or P. aeruginosa.