Study of some physical and chemical properities of local honey and antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria

Abstract

The indiscriminate use of antibiotics made many microorganism develop resistance to them. This created immense clinical problems in the treatment of infectious disease, therefore ; there is need to develop alternative antimicrobial agents for the treatment of infectious disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the physical and chemical properities of some different types of honey in Kerballa city(Helianthus L.,Zizyphus, Eucalyptus glodulus, Medicago satival ) such as water content, pH value, color, refractive index and electrical conductivity and detect the antimicrobial activity against some pathogenic bacteria(Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus spp., Pseudomonas spp. and Proteus spp). The results showed that honey exhibited different antimicrobial activity against all bacterial species according to the type of plant where the bee feeded , which the MIC of the four samples was all up to (11.25%) against all tested bacteria ,also there is a correlation between the previous physical and chemical properities and the antimicrobial activity, on which the sample B showed a best antimicrobial activity due to the affect of pH value (4.88) and also because the enrichment of this sample with glucose, while sample A showed lowest results due to the prsence of metal ion that inhibite the production of toxic microbial compound hydrogen peroxide .