Chemical composition and screening of antibacterial activities of essential oil of pistacia khinjuk against bacillus subtilis (atcc no. 21332)

Medicinal plants are considered modern resources for producing agents that could act as alternatives
to antibiotics in demeanor of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The aim of the study was to evaluate the
chemical composition and antibacterial activities of the essential oil of Pistacia khinjuk (Combined
with the dominance γ-terpinene) against Bacillus subtilis. The chemical composition of the P. khinjuk
was identified using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometer detector (GC-MS). As a
screen test to detect antibacterial properties of the P. khinjuk, agar well diffusion and agar disk
diffusion methods were employed. Macrobroth tube test was performed to determinate MIC.
According to results of GC-MS analysis, γ-terpinene (81.14%) (w/w), β-Pinene (3.93%) (w/w), α-
Terpinolene (2.38%) (w/w) were the abundant components of the P. khinjuk. The MIC and MBC
values were 0.031 g/ml for P. khinjuk in case of the bacterium. We believe that the article provide
support to the antibacterial properties of the P. khinjuk. In fact, the results indicate that the essential
oil of P. khinjuk can be useful as medicinal or preservative composition. Fractionation and
characterization of active molecules will be the future work to investigate.