• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.502-508
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• 2009

Antimicrobial activity of Sargassum thunbergii was determined by paper disc assay and minimum concentration inhibitor (MIC) test. A water extract of S. thunbergii did not show the antimicrobial activity, but an ethanol extract of S. thunbergii (SHE) inhibited Serratia liquefaciens, Salmonella Typhimurium, Pseudomonas aerogenosa and all of the tested gram-positive bacteria at 4 mg/mL. Especially, Bacillus subtilis, Clostridium perfringens and Listeria monocytogenes were susceptible to SHE. As the results of MIC test, SHE inhibited the growth of B. subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria monocytogenes at concentration of $0.1{\sim}0.3%$, and inhibited C. perfringens at 0.01%. In the thermal and pH stability test for SHE, antibacterial activities of SHE were maintained when the SHE was treated at $121^{\circ}C$ for 15 minutes or under pH $2{\sim}8$. SHE was partitioned in the order of n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and butanol. As the results of the MIC test for each obtained fraction, no fraction exhibited higher antibacterial activity than that of the crude SHE. However, a mixture of chloroform, ethylacetate and ethanol fractions showed higher antibacterial activity than SHE.