chemical composition of the essential oil of mentha pulegium l. and its antimicrobial activity on proteus mirabilis, bacillus subtilis and zygosaccharomyces rouxii

there is a growing interest in food industry to replace the synthetic chemicals by the natural products with bioactive properties from plant origin. the aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition of mentha pulegium essential oil and to characterize the antimicrobial activities of the essential oil. the essential oil of mentha pulegium was analyzed by gc-ms. the evaluation of the antimicrobial activity on proteus mirabilis atcc 15146, bacillus subtilis atcc 12711 and zygosaccharomyces rouxii atcc 14679was determined by minimum inhibitory concentration procedure. the sensitivity of microorganisms was also measured by disc diffusion and cup plate methods. the essential oil of mentha pulegium revealed pulegone, cineole and piperitenone were the main constituents, comprising 19.89%, 19.38%% and 15.14% of the essential oil, respectively. the results showed a significant antimicrobial activity against microorganisms especially bacillus subtilis, while the least susceptible microorganism was zygosaccharomyces rouxii (p