CHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF ESSENTIAL OIL OF FRUITSOF MORINDA CITRIFOLIA LINN: POTENT ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF ESSENTIAL OIL FROM MORINDA CITRIFOLIA FRUITS RICH IN SHORT-CHAIN FATTY ACIDS

The fruit of the Morinda citrifolia species popularly known as “noni” has been widely used in folk medicine for diverse therapeutic purposes including in the treatment of infectious diseases. Given this, we tested the essential oil from M. citrifolia fruits obtained by hydrodistillation against fungi and bacteria. The oil was rich in short-chain fatty acids: octanoic acid (38.7%) and hexanoic acid (20.0%) were identified as the major constituents after analysis of oil by GC/MS. The oil showed antimicrobial activity against all the microorganisms tested, mainly against fungi Candida albicans and C. utilise with minimal inhibitory concentration of 39 and 78 μg.mL−1, respectively. The antimicrobial potential of the oil was drastically reduced after it was subjected to the esterification reaction, indicating that thecarboxyl group is responsible for the strong oil activity.