, , and Essential Oils: Chemical Composition, Antimicrobial and Antileishmanial Activity.

The resistance mechanisms of bacteria and protozoans have evidenced the need of discover new compounds with potential pharmaceutical activity against pathogenic microorganisms. Medicinal plants have been for centuries a promising alternative as sources of new drugs. The objective of this work was to evaluate the chemical composition, antimicrobial and antileishmanial activities of , , and essential oils. Chemical analysis was performed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Antimicrobial activity was performed by disk diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) test. Antileishmanial activity was performed against antipromastigote and intracellular amastigote of . Cytotoxic and nitrite production were realized in BALB/c peritoneal macrophages. The major compounds of the essential oils were cinnamic aldehyde (46.30%) in , cis-p-menth-2-en-1-ol (33.88%) and linalyl acetate (13.90%) in , and turmerone (55.43%) in . The MIC showed significant antimicrobial activity of essential oil against (83.3 ± 14.43 g/mL). Antipromastigote activity showed IC values >500 g/mL to , 308.4 ± 1.402 g/mL to , and 405.5 ± 1.119 g/mL to essential oil. Activity against intracellular amastigote of showed IC of 63.3 ± 1.369 g/mL and cytotoxic was not observed, resulting in selectivity index higher than 15.79 to parasite. essential oil decreased nitrite production in peritoneal macrophages, but not in infected cells. The chemical composition of the three essential oils is directly associated to its potential biological action, as the antimicrobial activity. presented a potent antileishmanial activity against promastigote and intracellular amastigote of , although this activity is not linked to nitric oxide, since essential oil inhibits its production.