Antibacterial effect of Thymus sp. and Boswellia sp. extracts on Streptococcus pneumoniae and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates

Abstract

The antimicrobial activity of essential oils of Boswellia and thyme (Boswellia sp., and Thyme sp.) was evaluated against 20 clinical isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae and 5 isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae. Essential oils were prepared using methanol and water (1:1) with HPLC technique. Antimicrobial activity and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) were measured using disk diffusion method against 20 isolates of S. pneumoniae and 5 isolates of K. pneumoniae isolated from different patients. Flavonoids and phenolic compounds are the main constituents of Boswellia and thyme which may have the antimicrobial activity. Boswellia extract was more efficient than thyme extracts; 60% of S. pneumoniae isolates and one K. pneumoniae isolate were sensitive to Boswellia extract, 30% of S. pneumoniae isolates were sensitive to thyme extract, and no effect on K. pneumoniae clinical isolates was observed. Inhibition zones ranged from 1-12 mm with thyme extract, while Boswellia extracts showed 2 to 30 mm diameters of inhibition zone. This study is significant due to the widespread problem of microbial drug resistance and the need for natural antibiotic to fight diseases.

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“…The essential oils responsible for this activity are α-thujene, camphene, myrcene, and limonene via well diffusion and microdilution broth assay 21 . In arecent study, it was depicted that the essential oils of Boswellia species are responsible for antibacterial activity against Sterptococcus pneumoniae and Klebsiella pneumoniae with the inhibition zone of 2-30 mm diameter 22 . The hydroalcoholic extract of Boswellia serrata has shown antibacterial activity and proved to be effective in treating periodontal diseases 23 .…”

Boswellia carterii oleoresin extracts induce caspase-mediated apoptosis and G1 cell cycle arrest in human leukaemia subtypes

“…However, recent evidence suggests that Boswellia oleoresins and oleoresin-derived compounds may be effective in the treatment of a variety of diseases. For example, previous work highlights that extracts of Boswellia oleoresins show anti-inflammatory ( Koeberle et al, 2018 ) and anti-microbial ( Al-Dosary, 2018 ) activity. Furthermore, several studies show that extracts of the Boswellia oleoresins exhibit anti-cancer activity against multiple cancer cell types in vitro ( Ahmed et al, 2015 ; Zhang et al, 2016 ; Mazzio et al, 2017 ; Ranjbarnejad et al, 2017 ; Schmiech et al, 2019 ) through mechanisms such as apoptosis ( Moussaieff and Mechoulam, 2009 ; Ahmed et al, 2015 ; Ranjbarnejad et al, 2017 ), and cell cycle arrest ( Yazdanpanahi et al, 2014 ).…”