The possible effects of naturally occurring plant phenolics, caffeic acid (CA), chlorogenic acid (CGA) and ferulic acid (FA) on arylamine N-acetyltransferase (NAT) activities on human gastrointestinal microflora, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter aerogenes, Citrobacter koseri and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, were examined. The bacterial NAT activities were determined by HPLC measuring the acetylation of 2-aminofluorene (2-AF). Among all examined bacteria, P. aeruginosa exerted the highest NAT activity while C. koseri possessed the lowest NAT activity. CA, CGA and FA could suppress the bacterial NAT activities dose-dependently both in the intact cell and cytosolic fraction analysis. According to the analysis of kinetic parameters in E. coli and P. aeruginosa, CA, CGA and FA were shown to be potent noncompetitive inhibitors of bacterial NAT activities. For the time course experiment, 4 mM of CA and FA could inhibit bacterial NAT activities for at least 4 hour but 4 mM of CGA could only significantly suppress NAT activity in E. coli for the same reaction time. These results strongly demonstrated that CA, CGA and FA inhibited NAT activities in human gastrointestinal bacteria.