Oliveira Ribeiro Sofia, Fontaine Véronique, Mathieu Véronique, Abdesselam Zhiri, Dominique Baudoux, Caroline Stévigny, Florence Souard
Department of Research in Drug Development (RD3), Pharmacognosy, Bioanalysis and Drug Discovery Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Boulevard du Triomphe, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Department of Research in Drug Development (RD3), Microbiology, Bioorganic and Macromolecular Chemistry Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Boulevard du Triomphe, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Antibiotics (Basel). 2021 May 14;10(5):584. doi: 10.3390/antibiotics10050584.
The increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a worldwide concern. Essential oils are known to possess remarkable antibacterial properties, but their high chemical variability complicates their development into new antibacterial agents. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to standardize their chemical composition. Several commercial essential oils of ajowan ( L.) and thyme (chemotype thymol) ( L.) were bought on the market. GC-MS analysis revealed that thyme essential oils have a chemical composition far more consistent than ajowan essential oils. Sometimes thymol was not even the major compound. The most abundant compounds and the homemade mixtures were tested against two strains. The antibacterial property of -caryophyllene presented no direct activity against LMG 15975, but in association with thymol or carvacrol at equal percentages an MIC of 125 μg/mL was observed. The mixture of those three compounds at equivalent percentages also decreased by 16-fold the MIC of the penicillin V. Against LMG 21674, -caryophyllene presented an MIC of 31.3 μg/mL and decreased by 267-fold the MIC of the penicillin V. These observations led us to question the benefits of using a complex chemical mixture instead of one active compound to fight bacterial resistance.
细菌对抗生素的耐药性不断增加是一个全球性问题。已知精油具有显著的抗菌特性，但其高度的化学变异性使其难以开发成新型抗菌剂。因此，本研究的主要目的是规范其化学成分。从市场上购买了几种商品阿育吠陀（L.）和百里香（百里香酚化学型）（L.）精油。气相色谱 - 质谱分析表明，百里香精油的化学成分比阿育吠陀精油更为一致。有时百里香酚甚至不是主要成分。对最丰富的化合物和自制混合物针对两种菌株进行了测试。β-石竹烯的抗菌特性对LMG 15975没有直接活性，但与等量的百里香酚或香芹酚联合使用时，观察到最低抑菌浓度（MIC）为125μg/mL。这三种化合物等量混合时还使青霉素V的MIC降低了16倍。针对LMG 21674，β-石竹烯的MIC为31.3μg/mL，并使青霉素V的MIC降低了267倍。这些观察结果使我们质疑使用复杂化学混合物而非单一活性化合物对抗细菌耐药性的益处。
