Essential oil nanoemulsions of wild patchouli attenuate multi-drug resistant gram-positive, gram-negative and Candida albicans

Abstract

Patchouli essential oil (EO) from Pogostemon cablin (PC), is widely used in perfumery, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Being a well-known commodity and used in many products, pharmacological and biological properties of patchouli EO is well studied. However, wild patchouli species, P. heyneanus (PH) and P. plectranthoides (PP), are least studied in all aspects. The present study is aimed at preparation and characterization of EO nanoemulsions of wild patchouli and to specifically study their antimicrobial and biofilm eradication activities against Shigella flexneri, multi-drug resistant (MDR) Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus mutans and Candida albicans in comparison with the commercial patchouli EO. The commercial and wild patchouli EOs showed wide variations in their chemical constituents as patchouli alcohol, acetophenone and atractylone were found to be the principal component of commercial (PC) and wild patchouli (PH and PP) EOs respectively. Among the EO nanoemulsions, PH EO nanoemulsion showed good stability and size on the first day and 45th day of preparation. Similarly, EO nanoemulsion of PH exhibited better antibacterial and anti-candida activities against the studied microbes than the other two EOs. In case of biofilm eradication activity, EOs of all three species eradicated the biofilms of S. mutans and S. aureus at a range of 30–50%. The study suggests that EO of PH possesses better antibacterial and anti-candida activities compared with the other two species.