## 4 Discussion
Extraction of essential oils from elicited basil plants may set a new direction in the acquisition of substances of natural origin for use in civilization diseases. There are some studies indicating that essential oils are able to act as antimicrobial agents as well [28], but there is no information in the available literature about the influence of plant elicitation on these properties of essential oils. For this reason, in the present study, we analyzed the essential oils from jasmonic acid-elicited and control basil (studied previously to assess their composition and antioxidative and anti-inflammatory potential) [11] in terms of the effect of elicitation on the additional biological properties of these oils, i.e., the antimicrobial, anticholinesterase, and potential antidiabetic activity. The antibacterial activity of essential oils from some herbs including _Ocinum basilicum_ has been documented [37; 38; 39]. As suggested by many researchers, the characteristic hydrophobicity of EO components is involved in their antibacterial action. It allows EOs to separate the lipids of the bacterial cell membrane and mitochondria, disrupting the cell structures, which become more permeable. This mechanism of the antibacterial action of essential oil is associated with the inhibition of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial growth [8; 37]. Some studies have indicated that Gram-negative bacteria are more susceptible to essential oils than Gram-negative species [28]. However, our results indicated that the basil EOs demonstrated similar activity against _Staphylococcus aureus_ (Gram-positive bacteria) and _Escherichia coli_ (Gram-negative bacteria). The agar disk diffusion method demonstrated that the inhibition zones were from \(15.70\pm 0.37\) (control sample) to \(23.60\pm 1.91\) mm (JA1 sample) in the case of _Staphylococcus aureus_ and from \(14.50\pm 1.12\) mm (JA3 sample) to \(22.20\pm 3.34\) mm (JA2 sample) for _Escherichia coli_-Table 3. These results correspond perfectly to the results obtained by [39], in which basil EO showed antimicrobial activity with a similar inhibition zone diameter, i.e., \(23.3\pm 0.4\) mm against _Staphylococcus aureus_ and \(15.2\pm 0.5\) mm against _Escherichia coli_. Additionally, the MIC values of the basil EO studied in the present publication were similar to those obtained by [PERSON] et al. [40]. On the contrary, in the work conducted by [38], it was observed that the EO from basil (_Ocinum basilicum var. Grant verte_) had antibacterial activity against _Staphylococcus aureus_ (MIC = 0.53 \(\upmu\)L/mL) but no activity against _Escherichia coli_. As suggested by some researchers, this difference may be associated with the fact that _O. basilicum_ has a big number of chemotypes [41]. Essential oils are thought to be produced by plants in response to some environmental conditions, and, therefore, growth conditions, stressors, or elicitation may affect the yield and composition of EOs [28; 42]. As indicated in our previous study [11], jasonnic acid elicitation influenced the composition, as well as the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, of lettuce leaf basil EOs. As shown by the present results, the antimicrobial activity of basil EO was also determined by the JA elicitation-Table 3. This may be associated with differences in the content of some compounds in EO from the control and JA-elicited basil leaves [11]. As demonstrated by the present results, the best antimicrobial activity based on the MIC and MBC values was observed for JA2 and JA3-Table 3. Based on literature data, limonene, carvacrol, geraniol, \(\upalpha\)-pinene, \(\upbeta\)-pinene, eugenol, cinnamaldehyde, thymol, and menthol are the main compounds with a significant contribution to the antimicrobial activity of EOs [8; 39]. Some of these compounds (limonene, \(\upalpha\)-pinene, \(\upbeta\)-pinene, eugenol) are contained in the basil EOs studied by us [11].