Antimicrobial Effects of Fatty Acid Fructose Esters

Antimicrobial effects of various fatty acids and their esters have been extensively studied. Esters with saccharides (glucose, sucrose) have been found to have a broad spectrum of microbicidal activity. The objective of this study was to investigate the susceptibility of four microbial strains (Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Fusarium culmorum) to the antimicrobial properties of fatty acid (capric, lauric, myristic, and palmitic) fructose esters. Microorganisms were cultivated in liquid media supplemented with various concentrations of the tested agents. A spectrophotometric method was used for the quantitative detection of the microbial growth. Both the cultivation and measuring of the absorbance was carried out in microtiter plates. Our results indicate that the addition of the tested compounds strongly reduce the number of viable microorganisms. Higher concentrations caused microbicidal effect. The inhibitory action decreased rapidly as the chain length increased. Caprinoylfructose proved to be the most active.