Objective: In the search for potent antimicrobial agents
against bacteria and other microbial infections this study
evaluated the antibacterial properties of millipedes extracts
against selected control strains of bacterial pathogens
including Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas
aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae.
Methods: Two species of millipedes were identified as
Ophistreptus guineensis S. (Diplopoda: Spirostreptidae)
and Pachybolus ligulatus V. (Diplopoda: Pachybolidae)
were collected from the University of Ghana Botanical
Gardens and placed into 3 groups - Group 1 = O. guineensis
alone, Group 2 = P. ligulatus alone, and Group 3 =
mixture of O. guineensis + P. ligulatus. The millipedes
were killed, dried, and grounded into coarse powders.
Chloroform, ethanol, aqueous extracts were prepared and
screened for activity using agar well and paper-disc diffusion
assays. Minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations
(MIC and MBC) of the most active extracts
were also evaluated by the broth micro-dilution technique.
Results: Ethanol extracts of Group 3 (mixture of O.
guineensis + P. ligulatus) showed the highest activity,
with mean diameters of zones of inhibition of 29 ± 0.02
and 14 ± 0.00 mm against S. aureus and E. coli respectively.
No activity was observed for Group 2 extracts (P.
ligulatus alone), while some level of activities were observed
for Group 1 extracts (O. guineensis alone). MIC
and MBC values of 4.9 and 25.0 mg/ml of the ethanol
extract of Group 3 were found against S. aureus.
Conclusions: Work is in progress to isolate the bioactive
agent(s) in millipede extracts.
