Mohammad Hojjati - Department of Food Science and Technology,Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Ahwaz, Iran
Mitra Ghodsi - Department of Food Science and Technology,Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Ahwaz, Iran

The aim of this research was to investigate the chemical composition and antibacterial activity of essential oils obtained by hydro-distillation from aerial parts of the Oliveria decumbens harvested from western Iran. Composition of essential oils was analyzed using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The antimicrobial activity was tested on three Gram positive bacteria (Bacillus cereus, Listeria innocua, and Staphylococcus epidermidis), two Gram negative bacteria (Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhi), and a famous fungi (Candida albicans) by using disk diffusion agar method compared with nalidixic acid and gentamicin as synthetic antibiotics in different concentrations (8-256mg/ml). A total of 16 compounds were identified and showed that thymol (43.61%), carvacrol (42.06%), p-Cymene (7.02%) andγ-terpinene (3.52%) were the main components of essential oil. The results showed the O. decumbens essential oil had suitable anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. The results showed that essential oil had anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. In addition to, with increasing of essential oil concentration the inhibitory effects were increased. This study demonstrated that high concentration of essential oil had more inhibitory effects compared with nalidixic acid and gentamicin. These results indicate that the O. decumbens essential oil might be used as a natural preservative in food products.

volatile components, GC-MS, thymol, carvacrol, pathogen