Background: Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sanguinis are Gram-positive bacteria that cause dental caries. The MurA enzyme is a catalyst in the formation of peptidoglycan in the bacterial cell wall making it ideal as an antibacterial target. Basil (Ocimum americanum) is an edible plant medicine that diverse, very widely spreading, used as herbal for a long time, and it was reported to have pharmacology effect as antibacterial activity. The purpose of this study is to identify antibacterial compounds from O. americanum and analyze their inhibition activity to the MurA enzyme.

Methods: Fresh leaves from O. americanum extracted with n-hexane and purified by a combination of column chromatography on normal and reverse phase together with guided by in vitro bioactivity assay against S. mutans ATCC 25175 and S. sanguinis ATCC 10556, respectively, while in silico molecular docking simulation of lauric acid (1) using PyRx 0.8.

Results: The structure determination of antibacterial compound by spectroscopic methods resulted in an active compound 1 as lauric acid. The in vitro evaluation of antibacterial activity compound 1 showed the MIC and MBC of 78.13 & 156.3 ppm and 1250 & 2500 ppm against S. sanguinis and in S. mutans, respectively. Further analysis in silico evaluation as MurA Enzyme inhibitor, lauric acid (1) has a binding affinity of -5.2 Kcal/mol those higher than fosfomycin.

Conclusion: The lauric acid has potency as a new natural antibacterial agent through the MurA inhibition in bacterial cell wall biosynthesis.

Keywords: MurA enzyme; O. americanum; antibacterial; binding affinity.