an investigation into the antibacterial activities of medicinal plants ...

5.3 Standard agar plate count technique
The relative growth percentages of selected bacteria were more than 100% in the
test plant extract wells. This indicated that the growth of these bacteria was
stimulated at the specific plant extract concentrations in the microtitre plate assay.
Selected specific bacterial strains that displayed a relative growth percentage of
more than 100% were compared to one that showed a growth percentage of less
than 100% with the specific plant extract concentrations.
Bacterial strains with growth percentages of more than 100% selected for testing
included MRSA [no. 3] with the acetone extract of Z. aethiopica and P. aeruginosa
[no. 1], K. pneumoniae [no. 3] & A. baumanii [no. 5] with the acetone extract of M.
major (Table 15). S. aureus [no. 1] with the growth percentage less than 100% were
included for comparative purposes (Table 15).
The bacteria with growth percentages of more than 100%, all displayed higher cfu/ml
in the test extract wells in comparison to the controls (Table 15). S. aureus [no. 1]
with the relative growth percentage of 91%, displayed lower cfu/ml in plant extract
wells in comparison to the control (Fig. 15).
Results in Table 15 and Fig. 15 indicated that bacterial growth percentages of more
than 100% stimulated growth slightly and growth percentages of less than 100%
inhibited bacterial growth at the specific plant extract concentrations (Table 15).
The results confirmed that if the relative growth percentages of bacterial strains are
more than 100% it appears to be stimulated at the specific plant extract
concentration. Further investigation is needed into this phenomenon.
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