One of the most serious threats to public health across the world is the spread of antibiotics resistant pathogens. This situation obliges researchers from all over the world to focus on how they can overcome this obstacle mainly by searching or synthesizing new molecules to neutralize microbes and to overcome the phenomenon of resistance. One of the main reservoirs of potentially active molecules is the plantae kingdom. In this work, we focused on Rubus fruticosus L., a medicinal species which is used traditionally in Algeria to heal respiratory infections. Both of chemical composition and biological activities of essential oils and flavonoids extract were explored. GC-MS analysis of essential oil reveals the Lanceol as the most abundant component (20.22%). HPLC applied on flavonoids extract shows the presence of the gallic acid, gallocatechin, protocatechuic acid, catechin, caffeic acid, rutin, ellagic acid and myricetin. Tests of antioxidant capacity using the DPPH reveals an inhibiting effect which is more important with the flavonoid extract. Otherwise, resistant strains to conventional antibiotics seem to be sensitive to the flavonoids of this species with MICs varying from 2.36 to 75.54 mg/ml. This study indicates that R. fruticosus L. has an important antimicrobial effect, which justifies its potential use in infectious diseases. For many reasons, this species remains poorly studied, further refined studies on its pure secondary metabolites are needed in the perspective of identifying new antimicrobial molecules from this plant.Key words: Rubus fruticosus L., essential oil, flavonoids, antimicrobial activity, resistant respiratory pathogens, antioxidant activity. (Sansonetti and Orth, 2006).
INTRODUCTIONDespite the fact that researchers developed an important arsenal to face these infections and others, emerging resistances to antibiotics come to complicate the situation, this resistance implies various mechanisms such as modifying or synthesizing new targets, enzymatic modification, increasing efflux of antibiotics or others, the result is an under activity or non-activity of an important number of antibiotics used nowadays.Many solutions were suggested to face this situation, and one of the most promising options is trying to extract from the plants new molecules that can be safe and effective in healing such diseases, the number of medicinal plants are estimated to be between 40000 and 70000 which are very diverse source of bioactive molecules and about 80% of world population is currently using these plants (Ramawat, 2009).The interest in using these plants by population and also in research and academic world is increasing; new journals and reference books are published to enable researchers to find evidence based knowledge. Rubus fruticosus L. (Rosaceae) is a shrub well known for its fruit, called blackberries which are marketed all over the world for its delicious taste and high nutritive value. The shrub may be original from Armenia and is nowadays spreading in Europe, Asia, Oceania, northern an...