Abstract
In Tehuacán-Cuicatlán valley (Mexico), studies have been carried out on the essential oils of medicinal plants with antimicrobial activity and it was found that they present compounds in common such as: α-pinene, β-pinene, carvacrol, eugenol, limonene, myrcene, ocimene, cineole, methyl salicylate, farnesene, and thymol. The goal of this study was to assess the antimicrobial activity of essential oils’ compounds. The qualitative evaluation was carried out by the Kirby Baüer agar diffusion technique in Gram-positive bacteria (11 strains), Gram-negative bacteria (18 strains), and yeasts (8 strains). For the determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC), the agar dilution method was used. All the evaluated compounds presented antimicrobial activity. The compounds eugenol and carvacrol showed the largest inhibition zones. Regarding yeasts, the compounds ocimene, cineole, and farnesene did not show any activity. The compounds eugenol, carvacrol, and thymol presented the lowest MIC; bactericidal effect was observed at MIC level for S. aureus 75MR, E. coli 128 MR, and C albicans CUSI, for different compounds, eugenol, carvacrol, and thymol. Finally, this study shows that the essential oils of plants used by the population of Tehuacán-Cuicatlán valley share compounds and some of them have antibacterial and fungicidal activity.
Highlights
IntroductionOne of the major health concerns today in the world is the emergence of new microbial strains resistant to the chemical substances used for their control [1]
This study aims to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of several compounds in the essential oils of plants used in the Mexican Traditional Medicine of the Valley of Tehuacán-Cuicatlán, Puebla, that include α-pinene, β-pinene, carvacrol, eugenol, limonene, myrcene, ocimene, cineole, methyl salicylate, farnesene, and thymol
The results show that the use of plants and their essential oils used in traditional medicine in the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan valley Puebla can be validated, since several compounds have antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacteria, and yeasts
Summary
One of the major health concerns today in the world is the emergence of new microbial strains resistant to the chemical substances used for their control [1]. New strains resistant to commonly used antibiotics have appeared; for example, Candida auris is today an emergent and extremely dangerous strain difficult to control [2,3], as well as some other strains of Enterobacter aerogenes, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Vibrio cholerae, among others, causing serious health problems that are difficult to control and causing global concerns on the subject. The essential oils of plants have been developed as a commercial and pharmacological alternative for the treatment of various diseases, and their importance is based on the selective effects towards resistant strains that are recently reported. It has been observed that clove oil, for which main component is eugenol, has antibacterial activity affecting respiratory metabolism, structural changes of DNA, and cell membrane permeability [4,5]
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