Antimicrobial Activity of Thymus serpyllum L. and Thymus marschallianus Willd. Essential Oils Against Candida albicans.

Shapoval, O. G.; Sheremetyeva, A. S.; Dumova, N. A.; Mukhamadiev, N. Q.; Rabbimova, G. T.; Nazirbekov, M. H.

Essential oils of plants are sources of antimicrobial substances of a wide range of action and can be effective in the control of causative agents of mycoses, including opportunistic fungi of the genus Candida. The purpose of the study was to assess the antimicrobial activity of Thymus serpyllum L. and T. marschallianus Willd. essential oils against C. albicans. The essential oils were produced from herbs of the mentioned plant species by steam hydrodistillation. The antimicrobial activity was evaluated using disk-diffusion and serial dilution methods. The antimicrobial activity of emulsions of the essential oils prepared using surfactants and cosurfactants was also determined by the latter method. Six clinical strains of C. albicans isolated from urine, nasopharynx, and sputum samples were used as test strains. The disk-diffusion method revealed that the essential oils of both plant species strongly suppressed visible growth of the test strains up to complete absence of a lawn with abundant growth in the control and agar with antimycotic drugs. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of T. serpyllum and T. marschallianus essential oils were 0.49 – 3.9 and 0.49 – 0.98 μg/mL, respectively. The MICs of their 5% emulsions based on surfactants and cosurfactants were significantly lower at 0.04 – 0.19 and 0.09 – 0.19 μg/mL, respectively. The tested thyme essential oils of T. marschallianus and T. serpyllum exhibited comparable and high antimicrobial activity against C. albicans strains and could be considered promising antimicrobial agents in the treatment of urogenital candidiasis.

ESSENTIAL oils; CANDIDA albicans; ANTI-infective agents; THYMUS; VEGETABLE oils

Pharmaceutical Chemistry Journal, 2023, Vol 57, Issue 9, p1449

0091-150X

Academic Journal

10.1007/s11094-023-03009-6