ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITIES OF GANODERMA LUCIDUM EXTRACTS

ABSTRACT

Ganoderma lucidum are widely employed as traditional medicinal substances for the treatment of a variety of illnesses and related health issues. They contain bioactive components such as terpenoids, saponins, polysaccharides and so on which plays diverse role in therapeutic activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the antibacterial activity of Ganoderma lucidum produced with three different solvents using the agar well diffusion method against two Gram positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus) and two Gram negative bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli). The result showed that all the extract were found to have exhibited various degree of inhibition against the test organisms with the exception of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The widest inhibitory zone (26mm) was obtained from the ethanolic extract against Bacillus cereus.The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for the ethanol extract ranged between 50 and 100mg/ml, 25 and 100mg/ml for methanolic extract and lastly 50 and 100mg/ml for the aqueous extract. The result also shows that the three extracts of Ganoderma lucidum do not have bactericidal activity but are rather bacteriostatic. The phytochemical screening of the extracts shows that all the extract contains terpernoids which have been identified as the main antimicrobial components of the Ganoderma lucidum. The results obtained from this study shows that Ganoderma lucidum can be used to combat some pathogenic microorganisms.