Antibacterial activity of Illicium verum essential oil against MRSA clinical isolates and determination of its phyto-chemical components

Objective: The Illicium verum is an evergreen Chinese plant, from which a culinary spice named star anise is obtained and is predominantly used in Asian countries. Besides its flavor, it possess high medicinal value. Illicium verum possesses good antimicrobial properties and in the past utilized to treat versatile ail-ments of microbial origin. Illicium verum is commonly known as star anise. Methods: This study is an attempt to resurrect the ancient forgotten traditional spice Illicium verum by analyzing its essential oils (EOs) for the phyto-biochemical properties using GC-MS, IR studies and var-ious standard biochemical tests to record the presence of the chemical compounds based on its test reac-tions and also to measure its anti-microbial vulnerability testing towards the MRSA clinical isolates, by deploying the standard anti-microbial assay in the aseptic microbiological laboratory conditions. Results: The data procured from the standard antimicrobial assay of Illicium verum essential oil were compared with that of the standard antibiotic e-strips towards the same set of MRSA clinical isolates. The antimicrobial assay test results of Illicium verum essential oil against the clinical isolates of the MRSA showed promising results when compared to that of standard antibiotic e-strips. The results showed that all the MRSA clinical isolates were susceptible to the tested drug with inhibition zone diam-eter ranging from 18 mm to 28 mm (Mean 24.05 mm). The MBC and MIC results confirmed that the tested extract was potent against the highly virulent Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clinical isolates with MBC and MIC of 0.97 1.1g/mL and 0.70 1.1g/mL, which was lower compared to MBC and MIC values of the standard antibiotics. Conclusion: The results obtained from this study is a motivation to rediscover the ancient phytochemical compounds as an added asset to the standard available drugs in dealing with the upcoming hazardous diseases and pandemics. Thus, it relishes us to perform more of such studies to enhance the phyto-pharmacological industry. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).