Impact of Essential Oils on Some Pathogenic Bacteria. A review

Abstract

During the treatments of pathogenic bacterial diseases using antibiotics several problems emerge viz antibiotics toxicity to the patients and resistance of the bacteria to different antibiotics. Essential oils are natural products having antimicrobial activity to different microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, and bacteroides). These essential oils can also be combined with antibiotics (Lavandula oil mixed with Ciprofloxacin for treatment of Salmonella spp). The oils are used for the treatment of multi-drug-resistant bacteria as Mentha pulegium L oil is used for the treatment of imipenem resistant acinetobacter baumannii and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRS). The antimicrobial activities of essential oils are exhibited under the effect of constituents as aldehydes, fatty acids, ecosom, and hexagonal demonic acids present in Atropa belladonna. Other plants and Lavandula pedunculata contain camphor, fenchor, polyphenols, flavonoids, and hydroethanolic acids. These ingredients function as antioxidants, alteration of cell wall composition, impairment of nucleus and cytoplasm.