ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITIES OF PHARMACOLOGICAL AND ANTIOXIDANT COMPOUNDS OF SOME EDIBLE MUSHROOMS AGAINST BRUCELLA SPP.

Although there are numerous studies on antimicrobial activities of mushrooms against many common pathogenic microorganisms, there is hardly any study against Brucella spp., responsible for brucellosis in animals and human beings throughout the globe. The present study was aimed to evaluate the in vitro antimicrobial activities of ethanol extracts of five edible mushrooms namely, Pleurotus ostreatus, Pleurotus florida, Pleurotus eous, Pleurotus sajor-caju and Calocybe indica against four reference strains of Brucella spp.: B. abortus S19, B. abortus S99, B. melitensis M16 and B. suis 1330. Methodologies adopted were disc diffusion assay, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of the extracts. Evaluation of the antioxidant capacity of the extracts of the mushrooms by DPPH free radical scavenging activity was also aimed in this study. The total phenol content of the mushrooms showed significant positive Pearson correlation with the antioxidant capacity of the extracts. The results obtained revealed the antimicrobial potency of all the screened mushrooms against Brucella spp. P. sajor-caju had highest phenolic content, which may be responsible for its highest antioxidant capacity resulting outstanding antimicrobial activities. This study signifies the possible use of these edible mushrooms as source of effective antimicrobial agents against brucellosis.