Evaluación de la actividad antimicrobiana y antifúngica de 4-terpineol, β-EUDESMOL, TIMOL, CITRAL Y TRANS-2-DODECENAL, moléculas puras de aceites esenciales

Abstract

Many natural products have been shown to have a very interesting antimicrobial activity, among which essential oils stand out. Depending on the type of metabolites present and their concentration, they have been shown to inhibit or nullify the growth of bacteria and fungi. Among the biomolecules present in essential oils some stand out for their high activity: trans-2-dodecenal, thymol, β- eudesmol, citral, and 4-terpineol. The present investigation determined their bactericidal capacity in Gram +, Gram- strains, and in yeast employing the microplate technique, obtaining values of their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and inhibition index at 50% IC50, additionally, as check, the Kirby Bauer method or diffusion discs were used. The results show that all the molecules have very low MIC values, below 200 µg/mL, which translates into high antimicrobial activity. The best results were however as follows: for S. aureus, the Citral and Trans-2-dodecenal molecules show high inhibitory activity with MICs of 12.01 and 6.01 µg/mL and IC50 of 14 and 180 µg /mL respectively, for E. coli, the Citral molecule MIC was 24.05 µg/mL and IC50 of 40 µg /mL and for C. albicans the most active molecules were Trans-2-dodecenal with a MIC of 6.00 µg/mL and β- eudesmol MIC with 21.81 µg/mL and IC50 of 90 and 140 µg /mL. These encouraging results highlight this group of molecules, as well as essential oils containing them, as alternative sources.