Evaluación in vitro del efecto de extractos de Aloe Vera sobre Streptococcus Mutans

Abstract

Because of the increasing appearance of resistance mechanisms to antibacterial of common use, as long as the rising in the prevalence of infectious diseases, several studies have directed efforts in discovering new antimicrobial agents from plants and other natural sources, for being used in pharmaceutical compounds and cosmetics, which assure effectiveness, approachability and minimal side effects on patients. Aloe vera is considered one of these sources with potential pharmacological properties. Many methods have been reported to evaluate antibacterial activity of those products and demonstrate the properties of these substances. The agar dilution is the most accepted one; this method was used in this research in order to evaluate the antiseptic effect reported on the literature and to determine the effect of extracts obtained from the cuticle of the leaves and the juice of Aloe vera on Streptococcus mutans CVCM 656 (ATCC 25175), causative of dental decay and public health issue. The extracts obtained did not show inhibitory effect on the strain assayed, which indicates the inexistence of susceptibility or the need of assay concentrations over 512 µg/mL.