Assessing the Role of Lemon Juice in Combating Infections and Oxidative Stress

Background: Numerous foods and environmental sources contain bacteria that are resistant to at least one antimicrobial agent used in medicine and agriculture. Resistance to antibiotics in gram positive bacteria like Staphylococcu saureusis of special concern. Lemon juice has been reported to act as an antioxidant in various biological systems. They were reported to be effective against a variety of bacterial strains. Aim and objective: The aim of this study was to determine the antibacterial activity of lemon juice and to compare with that of the commercially available antibiotic penicillin in inhibiting the growth of Staphylococcus aureus. Materials and methods: The Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion technique was employed to evaluate the effect of lemon juice and commonly used antibiotic Penicillin on bacterial infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus. Results and discussion: The results indicate that penicillin was superior to lemon juice in inhibiting the growth of Staphylococcus aureus. However, lemon juice has also produced significant inhibitory results against the growth of gram-positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus when compared to penicillin. One-way statistical analysis ANOVA followed by Dunnet's multiple comparison tests and the T test followed by the Mann Whitney test were used to conduct statistical analysis in GraphPad Prism 9.1. Conclusion: Lemon juice extract was shown to be less effective against Staphylococcus aureus than commercially available antibiotic penicillin. Keywords Antimicrobial agent; Staphylococcus aureus; Lemon juice; Penicillin; Gram positive bacteria