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. 2016 Jun 8;21(6):743.
doi: 10.3390/molecules21060743.

Antimicrobial Activity and Modulatory Effect of Essential Oil from the Leaf of Rhaphiodon echinus (Nees & Mart) Schauer on Some Antimicrobial Drugs

Antonia Eliene Duarte  1   2 , Irwin Rose Alencar de Menezes  3 , Maria Flaviana Bezerra Morais Braga  4 , Nadghia Figueiredo Leite  5 , Luiz Marivando Barros  6   7 , Emily Pansera Waczuk  8 , Maria Arlene Pessoa da Silva  9   10 , Aline Boligon  11 , João Batista Teixeira Rocha  12 , Diogo Onofre Souza  13 , Jean Paul Kamdem  14   15 , Henrique Douglas Melo Coutinho  16 , Marilise Escobar Burger  17   18
Affiliations

Antimicrobial Activity and Modulatory Effect of Essential Oil from the Leaf of Rhaphiodon echinus (Nees & Mart) Schauer on Some Antimicrobial Drugs

Antonia Eliene Duarte et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Background: Rhaphiodon echinus is a weed plant used in the Brazilian folk medicinal for the treatment of infectious diseases. In this study, the essential oil of R. echinus leaf was investigated for its antimicrobial properties.

Methods: The chemical constituents of the essential oil were characterized by GC-MS. The antimicrobial properties were determined by studying by the microdilution method the effect of the oil alone, and in combination with antifungal or antibiotic drugs against the fungi Candida albicans, Candida krusei and Candida tropicalis and the microbes Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas. In addition, the iron (II) chelation potential of the oil was determined.

Results: The results showed the presence of β-caryophyllene and bicyclogermacrene in major compounds, and revealed a low antifungal and antibacterial activity of the essential oil, but a strong modulatory effect on antimicrobial drugs when associated with the oil. The essential oil showed iron (II) chelation activity.

Conclusions: The GC-MS characterization revealed the presence of monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes in the essential oil and metal chelation potential, which may be responsible in part for the modulatory effect of the oil. These findings suggest that essential oil of R. echinus is a natural product capable of enhancing the antibacterial and antifungal activity of antimicrobial drugs.

Keywords: R. echinus; antibacterial activity; antifungal activity; modulating; natural products.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Minimum inhibitory concentration of nystatin and fluconazole in the presence and absence of R. echinus leaf essential oil for Candida albicans. ORe = R. echinus leaf essential oil. Statistical analysis: one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-hoc test. *** p < 0.001 indicates significant difference when R. echinus leaf essential oil was added to the medium. ns, not significant. Data show mean + SEM from three independent experiments performed in triplicate.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Minimum inhibitory concentration of nystatin and fluconazole in the presence and absence of R. echinus leaf essential oil for Candida krusei. ORe = R. echinus leaf essential oil. Statistical analysis: one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-hoc test. *** p < 0.001 indicates significant difference when R. echinus leaf essential oil was added to the medium. ns, not significant. Data show mean + SEM from three independent experiments performed in triplicate.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Minimum inhibitory concentration of nystatin and fluconazole in the presence and absence of R. echinus leaf essential oil for Candida tropicalis. ORe = R. echinus leaf essential oil. Statistical analysis: one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-hoc test. *** p < 0.001 indicates significant difference when R. echinus leaf essential oil was added to the medium. ns, not significant. Data show mean + SEM from three independent experiments performed in triplicate.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Minimum inhibitory concentration of antibiotics in the presence and absence of R. echinus leaf essential oil for Escherichia coli. ORe = R. echinus leaf essential oil. Statistical analysis: one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-hoc test. ** p < 0.01 indicates significant difference when R. echinus leaf essential oil was added to the medium. ns, not significant; G = gentamicin, A = amikacin, I = imipenem, C = ciprofloxacin. Data show mean + SEM from three independent experiments performed in triplicate.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Minimum inhibitory concentration of antibiotics in the presence and absence of R. echinus leaf essential oil for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. ORe = R. echinus leaf essential oil. Statistical analysis: one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-hoc test. *** p < 0.001 indicates significant difference when R. echinus leaf essential oil was added to the medium. ns, not significant; G = gentamicin, A = amikacin, I = imipenem, C = ciprofloxacin. Data show mean + SEM from three independent experiments performed in triplicate.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Minimum inhibitory concentration of antibiotics in the presence and absence of R. echinus leaf essential oil for Staphylococcus aureus. Statistical analysis: one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-hoc test, ns, not significant. ORe = R. echinus leaf essential oil. Ns, indicates significant difference when R. echinus leaf essential oil was added to the medium. G = gentamicin, A = amikacin, I = imipenem, C = ciprofloxacin. Data show mean + SEM from three independent experiments performed in triplicate.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Oxidation of Fe2+ by R. echinus leaf essential oil (30–120 μg/mL). The essential oil was incubated with FeSO4 (110 μM) for 10 min. Then, ortho-phenanthroline was added and the absorbance of the reaction was measured at 0, 10 and 20 min following its addition of ortho-phenanthroline. After the last reading (at 20 min), 5 mM of ascorbic acid (AA) was added and the absorbance was read again at 5 min, 10 min and 20 min. Values represent the mean ± SEM of 3 independent experiments performed in duplicate. ORe = R. echinus leaf essential oil.
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