Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objective: Staphylococcus aureus is one of the important food borne pathogens. The use of chemical food preservations to prevent the contamination of such bacterial strain in foods has potential to pose harm to consumers. Therefore, currently there have been attempts to find safe natural products such as thymol to use as alternatives. Methods: This study was to examine the effect of temperature on antimicrobial activity and mode of action of thymol against S. aureus. As studied at 370C and 200C, thymol had ability to inhibit the bacterium with the Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of 1.25 mM and had bacteriocidal mode of action. Findings: These results suggest that temperature has no effect on antimicrobial activity and mode of action of thymol against S. aureus that is a gram positive bacterium. The findings are different from those of previous research works reporting that temperature had an effect on antimicrobial activity of thymol against gram negative bacteria. Application: Thus, this report is the first to propose the possible explanation on why temperature affects antimicrobial activity of thymol against gram positive and gram negative bacteria differently. 

Keywords: Antimicrobial Activity, Mode of Action, Staphylococcus aureus, Thymol