Research Article Evaluation of the Antimicrobial Properties of the Essential Oil of Myrtus communis L. against Clinical Strains of Mycobacterium spp.

Copyright © 2010 Stefania Zanetti et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the etiological agent of tuberculosis. The World Health Organization has estimated that 8 million of people develop active TB every year and the situation is complicated by an increase of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains resistant to drugs used in antitubercular therapy: MDR and XDR-TB. Myrtle leaf extracts, used as an antiseptic in Sardinian traditional medicine, have strong antibacterial activity as several investigations showed. In this study we investigated the antimicrobial properties of the essential oil of Myrtus communis against clinical strains of M. tuberculosis and M. paratuberculosis. 1