Assessing the antibiotic potential of essential oils against Haemophilus ducreyi
Project Author
Issue Date
2014-05-27
Authors
Lindeman, Zachary
Waggoner, Molly
Batdorff, Audra
Humphreys, Tricia L.
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Keywords
Haemophilus ducreyi , Chancroid , Essential oil
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Abstract
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.
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Department
Biology
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License
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Citation
Lindeman et al.: Assessing the antibiotic potential of essential oils against Haemophilus ducreyi. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2014 14:172.
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Published article
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Publisher
BioMed Central Ltd