Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Activity of Essential Oil of EndemicOriganum bilgeriP. H. Davis for Turkey

The present study describes chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of the essential oil from Origanum bilgeri, which is endemic for Turkey. The essential oil was obtained by hydrodistillation and components of the essential oil were analyzed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The major component of O. bilgeri essential oil was carvacrol (84.8 %) and p-cymene (4.0 %), γ-terpinene (3.3 %) were the other components. Antimicrobial activity of the essential oil was investigated against standard control and resistant strains, using disc diffusion, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) methods. O. bilgeri essential oil showed very strong antimicrobial activity against all tested pathogenic bacteria except P. aeruginosa. Especially, it is important that the essential oil was more effective than antibiotics tested against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin resistant Enterococcus faecalis (VRE).