Assessing the antibiotic potential of essential oils against Haemophilus ducreyi

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Tricia L Humphreys¹  Audra Batdorff¹  Molly Waggoner¹  Zachary Lindeman¹ 

[1] Allegheny College Department of Biology, 520 N. Main St., Meadville, PA 16335, USA

关键词: Essential oil;    Chancroid;    Haemophilus ducreyi;   

Others  :  1220135
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-172

 received in 2014-01-09, accepted in 2014-05-20,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Haemophilus ducreyi is the bacterium responsible for the genital ulcer disease chancroid, a cofactor for the transmission of HIV, and it is resistant to many antibiotics. With the goal of exploring possible alternative treatments, we tested essential oils (EOs) for their efficacy as antimicrobial agents against H. ducreyi.

Methods

We determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of Cinnamomum verum (cinnamon), Eugenia caryophyllus (clove) and Thymus satureioides (thyme) oil against 9 strains of H. ducreyi using the agar dilution method. We also determined the minimum lethal concentration for each oil by subculturing from the MIC plates onto fresh agar without essential oil. For both tests, we used a 2-way ANOVA to evaluate whether antibiotic-resistant strains had a different sensitivity to the oils relative to non-resistant strains.

Results

All 3 oils demonstrated excellent activity against H. ducreyi, with MICs of 0.05 to 0.52 mg/mL and MLCs of 0.1-0.5 mg/mL. Antibiotic-resistant strains of H. ducreyi were equally susceptible to these 3 essential oils relative to non-resistant strains (p = 0.409).

Conclusion

E. caryophyllus, C. verum and T. satureioides oils are promising alternatives to antibiotic treatment for chancroid.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Lindeman et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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