tuberculosis H37Rv. The best activity was found with one with a C10 chain length. This bactericidal activity can partly be attributed to its ability to damage the robust and complex cell envelope of Mycobacteria. Moreover, our study reveals the ability of decanol to attenuate biofilm formation by M. smegmatis. This knowledge can be used to develop new therapeutics and disinfectants

against mycobacteria. Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and results in innumerable deaths worldwide. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is highly infectious and is able to establish persistent infection in individuals even with a healthy immune STA-9090 order system and thus has infected more than one-third of the world’s population. The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis strains (XDR) and its coinfection with HIV has made tuberculosis more difficult to treat (Global tuberculosis control, full report, 2011). The search for antimycobacterial agents for both therapy and disinfection is therefore now of major research interest across the world. In this regard, research Palbociclib supplier describing new antimycobcaterial agents from natural and synthetic sources is being reported with different target sites and mode of actions (Koyama et al., 2010; Kakwani

et al., 2011; Lougheed et al., 2011). Different types of alcohols, their derivatives and some lipophilic or amphiphilic compounds are known to exhibit antimycobacterial

activity (Júnior et al., 2009; Rugutt & Rugutt, 2011; Falkinham et al., 2012). Among the different class of alcohols, aliphatic alcohols are the most widespread compounds occurring naturally in plants and foods. There have been a number of reports on the antibacterial activities of long-chain fatty alcohols (Lansford et al., 1960; Sheu & Freese, 1973; Mates, 1974; Kato et al., 1978; Kato & Shibasaki, 1980; Kubo et al., 1993a, b; Tanaka et al., 2002; Kabelitz et al., 2003; Togashi et al., 2007). These studies showed that the antimicrobial activity is influenced Urease by the number of carbon atoms present in the alkanol chain and can be modulated by the presence of an effective head group that alters its polarity. The presence of double or triple bonds and their position can also play a crucial role in determining their antimicrobial activities (Ravel et al., 1955; Lansford et al., 1960; Sheu & Freese, 1973; Mates, 1974; Kabelitz et al., 2003). In addition, the type of organism and its cell-wall composition also influence the anti-microbial activity of a particular agent. However, no antimyobacterial activity of these long-chain fatty alcohols has previously been reported. In this context, in the present study we have investigated the effect of long-chain fatty alcohols against Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2155 and M. tuberculosis H37Rv.