Emergence of resistance among pathogenic bacteria against available antibiotics is posing a great challenge to the current world. Thus, there is a great need to discover novel antibiotics. Traditional plants have been proved to be novel source in the search of antimicrobial compounds. The current study pertained to the susceptibilities of some clinically significant bacterial species to various crude extracts of Elettaria cardamomum Maton (Chhoti elaichi) dry fruits by agar well diffusion assay. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of extracts were further evaluated against these bacteria. The study indicated that antibacterial activity of this plant is dependent on the type of extract and the organism evaluated. Ethanol extract was found to have comparatively higher activity than other organic and aqueous extracts. Gram-positive bacteria showed competent but variable susceptibilities to all the tested extracts. MIC data showed hopeful results as some of the extracts exhibited significant inhibitions of bacteria even at concentrations as low as 512 μg/mL. Overall, E. cardamomum seems to have significant antibacterial activity and to be very useful in the discovery of novel antibiotic.
Keywords: Antibacterial activity; Chhoti elaichi; Elettaria cardamomum; Minimum inhibitory concentration.