Table 2.
Antimicrobial activitiesa of essential oils extracted from the whole plant of Origanum vulgare L. at the early vegetative (I), late vegetative (II), blooming (III), and full flowering (IV) stages, thymol and carvacrol toward lactic acid bacterial strains.
| Strain | Source of isolation (phenological stage)b | MIC (μg/ml) |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | II | III | IV | Thymol | Carvacrol | ||
| Lactobacillus plantarum EpSI4 | Stems (I) | 750 | 500 | 750 | 750 | 750 | >1000 |
| Leuconostoc citreum EnLI9 | Leaves (I) | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 250 | 1000 |
| Enterococcus faecium EpLI16 | Leaves (I) | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 750 |
| L. plantarum EnLIV11 | Leaves (IV) | 500 | 750 | 1000 | 750 | 1000 | 1000 |
| L. plantarum EnFIII3 | Flowers (III) | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | 1000 | >1000 |
| L. plantarum EpFIII1 | Flowers (III) | 750 | 750 | 750 | 750 | >1000 | >1000 |
| L. plantarum EnSIII5 | Stems (III) | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Enterococcus mundtii EnSIV3 | Stems (IV) | 500 | 750 | 750 | 500 | 500 | 250 |
| L. plantarum EnFIII9 | Flowers (III) | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | 1000 |
| Lactococcus lactis EpLIV7 | Leaves (IV) | 750 | 750 | 750 | 750 | 750 | 500 |
| E. mundtii EpSIV7 | Stems (IV) | >1000 | 250 | 750 | 750 | 250 | 250 |
| L. plantarum EnFIV10 | Flowers (IV) | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | >1000 | 1000 | 1000 |
aMinimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values determined for the identified lactic acid bacterial strains; the data are from three independent experiments. bSource of isolation and phenological stages are described in Section “Materials and Methods” and Supplementary Figure S4.