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Antimicrobial properties of plant essential oils and essences against five important food‐borne pathogens
Author(s) -
Alison SmithPalmer,
John Stewart,
Lorna Fyfe
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
letters in applied microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.698
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1472-765X
pISSN - 0266-8254
DOI - 10.1046/j.1472-765x.1998.00303.x
Subject(s) - antimicrobial , listeria monocytogenes , bacteria , campylobacter jejuni , microbiology and biotechnology , nutmeg , salmonella , biology , pathogenic bacteria , food science , essential oil , staphylococcus aureus , genetics
The antimicrobial properties of 21 plant essential oils and two essences were investigated against five important food‐borne pathogens, Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria monocytogenes. The oils of bay, cinnamon, clove and thyme were the most inhibitory, each having a bacteriostatic concentration of 0·075% or less against all five pathogens. In general, Gram‐positive bacteria were more sensitive to inhibition by plant essential oils than the Gram‐negative bacteria. Campylobacter jejuni was the most resistant of the bacteria investigated to plant essential oils, with only the oils of bay and thyme having a bacteriocidal concentration of less than 1%. At 35 °C, L. monocytogenes was extremely sensitive to the oil of nutmeg. A concentration of less than 0·01% was bacteriostatic and 0·05% was bacteriocidal, but when the temperature was reduced to 4 °C, the bacteriostatic concentration was increased to 0·5% and the bacteriocidal concentration to greater than 1%.