Antibacterial Activity of Watercress (Nasturtium Officinale) against

Staphylococcus Aureus

Abdul Karim

, Yuni Syartika

and Kiki Nurtjahja

Department of Biology, Universitas Medan Area, Medan, Indonesia

Department of Biology, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Inhibition zone, Leaf extract, Nasturtium officinale, Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate the potential of leaf ethanol extract of watercress (Nasturtium

officinale) againts Staphyllococcus aureus. The air-dried of watercress were ground and extracted using

ethanol 70% and stored for 3 days. The macerate then was filtered and evaporated at 50°C until thick paste

ectract was obtained. Extract was made several concentration by dimethyl sulfoxide 10%. The concentration

used was 0, 60, 75, and 100%. As much as 0.1 ml bacterial suspension (10

colony forming unit/ml) was

cultured in 15 ml mueller hinton agar (MHA) in petri dish (9 cm in diameter) and paper disc (0.5 mm in

diameter) was soaked by extract and placed on the surface of the MHA medium. Blank paper disc soaked

with distilled water and chloramphenicol as negative and positive control respectively. Three replicates for

each treatment. All plates were incubated at 37°C for 24 h. The presence of clear zone surrounding paper disc

was observed. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined based on the clear zone on each

extract concentration. Results showed that inhibition occured at extract concentration 100% (4.5 mm) and

MIC at 90% (2.42 mm).

1 INTRODUCTION

Watercress (Nasturtium officinale R.Br.) is an annual

plant (Family Brassicaceae). This plant is easy to

grown and grow wildly an and around water at a small

creek, pond or shallow lake. This native plant is from

western Asia, India, Europe and Africa (Cruz et al.

2008). This leafy plant used as vegetable and can be

used as traditional medicine for physiology and

microbiological diseases (Pandey et al. 2018; Zeb and

Murkovic 2011). Extract of N. officinale is potential

and effective as antimicrobial agents (Freitas et al.

(2013; Ahmad et al. 2016).

In vitro culture biomass of N. officinale is

potential as antifungal and antibacteria (Klimek-

Szczykutowicz et al. (2020). Mahdavi et al. (2019)

reported that essential oil of N. officinale effective in

inhibiting Bacillus cereus ATCC 11778, whereas, the

ethanolic extract begin to inhibit Staphylococcus

aureus PTCC 1112 at 25 and 50%. Derhami et al.

(2016) used alcohol and aqueous extract and stated

that N. officinale is more effective as antibacteria on

gram positive than that of gram negative. However,

screening biological activity methanol extract of leaf,

root and seeds of N. officinale was high activity

againts Klebsiella pnemoniae and Shigella spp. (Iseri

et al. (2014). The purpose of the current study was to

investigate the potential ethanolic extract of

Nasturtium officinale againts Staphylococcus aureus.

2 MATERIALS AND METHOD

2.1 Preparation of Ethanol Extract

After collecting N. officinale from local traditional

market in Medan, five kilogram of the fresh plant was

air-dried, powdered, and 300 of simplicia was

extracted using ethanol 70%, stored for 3 d,

homogenized, filtered and evaporated at 50°C.

Extract concentration, 0, 60, 75 and 100% was made

using dimethyl sulfoxide 10%.

2.2 Preparation of Bacterial

Suspension

Staphylococcus aureus used was culture collection of

Laboratory Microbiology, Pharmacy Department,

Universitas Sumatera Utara. As much as 0.1 ml

552

Karim, A., Sartika, Y. and Nurtjahja, K.

Antibacterial Activity of Watercress (Nasturtium Ofﬁcinale) against Staphylococcus Aureus.

DOI: 10.5220/0010613100002775

In Proceedings of the 1st International MIPAnet Conference on Science and Mathematics (IMC-SciMath 2019), pages 552-554

ISBN: 978-989-758-556-2

bacterial suspension (10

cfu/ml) in petri dish (9 cm

in diameter) was pourplated by 15 ml mueller hinton

agar (MHA), shaked to homogenize. Paper disc (0.5

mm in diameter) was soaked by plant extract

concentration and placed on the surface on the MHA

plate. Blank paper disc soaked by distilled water and

chloramphenicol used as negative and positive contrl

respectively. All cultures were incubated at 37°C for

24 h. Three replicates were made for each treatment.

2.3 Determination of Minimum

Inhibitory Concentration (MIC)

The minimun inhibitory concentration was

determined based on the lowest clear zone at extract

concentration. The range of the extract were made.

Distilled water and chloramphenicol were used as

negative and possitive control successively.. All

culture were incubated at 37°C for 24 h. Three

replicates were made for each treatments.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1

Antibacterial Activity of

Ethanolic Extract of N. officinale

Ethanolic extract of N. officinale inhibit the growth of

Staphylococcus aureus. (Figure 1). However no

inhibition was found at concentration 60 and 75%.

The inhibition occured at extract 100%. Our result

was in similar to Al-Histawi (2017) that used N.

officinale seeds ethanol extract againts S. aureus at

had no activity.

Figure 1: Left, Activity ethanolic extract of of N. officinale

againts S. aureus on muellen hinton agar (MHA) after 24 h

incubation (37°C). A2 = negative control (no extract), A3 =

60% extract, A4 = 75% extract, A5 = 100% extract, A7 =

positive control (chloramphenicol). Right, Minimum

inhibitory extract concentration 90, 95 and 98%.

As shown in Figure 1 extract concentration 100%

(inhibition zone 11.2 mm) (Table 1) only

concentration that the inhibition can be seen clearly.

Therefore, based on 100% extract concentration,

range of concentration such as 90, 95, 98% showed

that the minimum inhibitory concentration occured

at 90% (4.85 mm). (Table 2). Previous study the

effect ofnano particle extract of N. officinale by

Oraibi et al. (2016) stated that Staphylococcus aureus

was the most sensitive to the extract. Based on the

Table 1, range of 100% extract concentration was

made (Table 2) to determine minimum inhibitory

concentration.

Table 1: Inhibition ethanolic extract of N. officinale againts

Staphylococcus. aureus

Extract concentration (%) Inhibition

zone (mm)

ative control (no extract) 0

Positive control

(chloramphenicol)

19.18

60 0

75 0

100 11.2

Table 2: Minimum inhibition concentration ethanolic

extract of N. officinale againts Staphylococcus aureus

Extract concentration (%) Inhibition

zone (mm)

ative control (no extract) 0

positive control

(chloramphenicol)

19.18

90 4.85

95 6.30

98 6.99

Ethanolic extract N. officinale inhibit the grow of

S. aureus at concentration between 90 and 100%.

However, results of the current study showed that the

concentration is lower than that our study. The

differences in antimicrobial activity might be caused

by the site that plant growth and age the plant.

4 CONCLUSION

As medicinal plant, watercress (Nasturtium officinale)

is potential to inhibit Staphylococcus aureus.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The research was funded by Universitas Sumatera

Utara, contract TALENTA Reseach grant no.

136/UN5.2.3.1/PPM/KP-TALENTA USU/2019.

Antibacterial Activity of Watercress (Nasturtium Ofﬁcinale) against Staphylococcus Aureus

553

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