Abstract
Outbreak of autoimmune diseases by pathogenic yeasts has led to a serious medical threat. As these organisms evolve resistance to existing antifungal drugs, the concern could be further compounded. The realm of plant derived products offers a wide spectrum of potentially valuable alternatives to the existing synthetic fungicides. Essential oils from sev-eral medicinal plants have been shown to exhibit pharmacological attributes. In the present study, anti-yeast properties of Oregano essential oil (OEO) were examined in vitro against four human patho-genic yeasts i.e., Candida albicans, Cryptococcus al-bidus, Cryptococcus neoformans and Rhodotorula ru-brum. OEO concentration of 200 μg/mL was found to be growth inhibitory against all four yeasts examined, thereby showing its potential to function as a natural anti-yeast agent.
Highlights
Aromatic plants and spices have been used in traditional medicine since ancient times due to different potent activities of their components
C. albicans and C. neoformans were assessed for Oregano essential oil (OEO) susceptibility using solid medium growth inhibition test by employing the disk diffusion method [5]
All the experiments were conducted in triplicate and liquid growth medium inhibition tests were duplicated for C. albicans, C. albidus, C. neoformans, and R. rubrum
Summary
Aromatic plants and spices have been used in traditional medicine since ancient times due to different potent activities of their components. C. albicans, an opportunistic fungal pathogen, resides commensally in the mucocutaneous cavities of skin, vagina and intestine of humans [2] It is one of the most frequent causes of fungal infections under altered physiological and pathological conditions like infancy, pregnancy, diabetes, prolonged broad-spectrum antibiotic administration, steroidal chemotherapy and AIDS [3]. Human fungal infections mainly among immunocompromised patients have increased at an alarming rate during recent times [5], thereby warranting the need to identify and develop potent anti-yeast agents with broad spectrum activities. A few studies (including the present one) have demonstrated the time and concentration dependent efficacy of OEO as an anti-yeast agent on human pathogenic yeasts such as C. Since the effects of OEO an anti-yeast agent against Candida albicans have been demonstrated in earlier studies, we included this strain in the present study to compare our results with those reported elsewhere
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