• Evaluation of antimicrobial and cytotoxicity of the combination of honey and Zataria multiflora and Black cardamom plants on Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli bacteria
  • sajjad jafari,1,* Mina Shirmohammadpour,2 Reza Akbari,3 Mohammad Reza Vardast,4 Bahman Mirzaei,5
    1. 2Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, West Azerbaijan, Iran.
    2. 1Department of Microbiology and Virology, Faculty of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran.
    3. university medical urmia fo facutly medical
    4. university medical urmia fo facutly medical
    5. Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran


  • Introduction: Considering the high rates of global antimicrobial resistance, researchers are looking for new ways to deal with the resistance. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the bioactive compounds and antimicrobial effects of honey and alcoholic extracts of Zataria multiflora and Black cardamom.
  • Methods: The bioactive compounds of alcoholic extracts of Zataria multiflora and Black cardamom plants were analyzed by GC-MS. The effect of cytotoxicity of honey and alcoholic extracts of the mentioned plants on the HEK293 epithelial cell line and human erythrocytes was performed by MTT and hemolytic methods, respectively. We evaluated the antimicrobial effects of honey and alcoholic extracts of both plants, first individually and then in combination with different ratios on some bacteria, to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) based on the latest CLSI2023.
  • Results: Studying the use of the composition of honey (30%) and alcoholic extracts of Zataria multiflora (35%) and Black cardamom (35%) against three tested bacteria revealed MIC=1000 μg/ml on Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeroginosa and also minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC)=1000μg/ml against Escherichia coli. Thymol, Resorcinol, Phenol, 2-methyl-5-(1-methyl ethyl, 3,7-Octadiene-2,6-diol, 2,6-dimethyl) were identified and analyzed as possible compounds using GC-MS. The toxicity combination of F6 against human blood cells and human kidney epithelial cells (HEK293) was 11.13%, and 13.84% less against triton X-100 toxicity (95%) respectively.
  • Conclusion: Compound F6 honey (30%) and alcoholic extracts of Zataria multiflora (35%) and Black cardamom (35%) due to better antibacterial properties against Escherichia coli bacteria, and less toxicity against eukaryotic cells due to the presence of chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide, thymol and resorcinol, is a suitable candidate for further studies, including the relationship between the components of the composition and animal studies.
  • Keywords: Honey, Black cardamom, Zataria multiflora, Cytotoxicity, Antibacterial.