Bacterial Growth Stimulation and Antifungal Effects of the Essential-oilless-extracts of the Food Spice Dysphania ambrosioides

D. ambrosioides Leaves (DaL) are utilized as food spice. DaL infusion is utilized as antihelminthic in traditional medicine, the extracted Essential Oil (EO) is genotoxic and has been repurposed as biopesticide. As Da might be a good candidate for circular economy, more potential applications of the essential-oil-less-Da extracts were pursued by applying green chemistry based extraction methods. DaL extracts were prepared by the autoclave method for the sterile-essential-oil-less aqueous extract (SALAEL-Da), butanol fractionating for Saponins Extraction (SAP) and ethanol boiling method for the saponin-free extract (EtOHDa). Their effects over clinical isolates of fungi (Candida albicans/CA), gram-negative bacteria (Erwinia carotovora/ ErC) and-positive (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus USA 300/MRSA-USA-300) were explored. The raw extracts stimulated the bacterial growth of all strains in the pre-screening phase. SALAEL-DaL (at 25 mg/ mL) stimulated ErC growth, reducing its doubling time by 35%, microdilutions of EtOH-DaL (at 180 mg/mL) stimulated the growth of MRSA-USA-300 even in the GEN presence at sub-lethal concentrations (MICGEN=1.75 µg/mL). SALAEL-Da (at 137 mg/mL) inhibited the growth of CA in agar dilutions, and its fraction SAP showed a moderated fungistatic effect at 100 mg/mL in disk diffusion pre-screening tests. SAP fraction may partially account for the observed antifungal activity. The essential-oil-less-Da aqueous extracts analyzed contained bacterial growth stimulating and antifungal components. Further investigation may lead to commercial opportunities for probiotics and antifungals.