Antimicrobial activity of raw soybean, soybean flour and roasted soybean extracted by ethanol-hexane method

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to determine the antimicrobial compounds extracted from various types of soybean materials; raw soybean, soybean flour and roasted soybean. Bacteria growth inhibition was tested in E.coli and S. aureus by disk diffusion method. Efficiency of antimicrobial activities were compared among the extracted solution. Design/methodology/approach - Soybean (Glycine max) isoflavones contain the ability to inhibit the growth of many strains of microorganisms. The solid-liquid extraction, ethanol-hexane extraction, was modified to isolate the inhibitory compounds from the three different types of soybean materials. All crude extracts at various concentrations performed under different extracted solutions (75, 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25 and 3.125 percent) were tested with E. coli. and S. aureus to determine the antimicrobial activities and the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC). Disk diffusion method was chosen to study the antimicrobial activity of isoflavones. Findings - Soybean flour extract inhibited the growth of E. coli and S. aureus more effective than roasted soybean and raw soybean, respectively. The MIC of inhibitory compounds extracted from soybean flour was 6.25 percent (0.031 mg/ml), roasted soybean was 25 percent (0.125 mg/ml) and raw soybean was 50 percent (0.250 mg/ml). Crude extracts of soybean flour and roasted soybean showed better results than raw soybean. All the three of extracted soybeans inhibited the growth of E. coli better than S. aureus. Originality/value - Ethanol-hexane extraction was successfully used to isolate the antimicrobial compounds from raw soybean, soybean flour and roasted soybean. Comparison of antimicrobial activity showed that soybean flour contained the highest inhibition activity.