Chemical profiles and efficacy of essential oils obtained from three spices against Helicobacter pylori

Resumen

Introduction: The medicinal herbs constitute one of the most preferred alternative solutions as antimicrobial agents due to their availability, biodegradability, fewer side effects. Unfortunately, rare are the studies focused on the efficacy of plant extracts against Helicobacter pylori to either confirm or refute their effectiveness.

Objective: to study the variation in chemical composition between essential oils from Eugenia caryophyllata, Foeniculum vulgare and Carum carvi and to evaluate their antibacterial potency against Helicobacter pylori, the high risk factor of gastric cancer.

Methods: the essential oils obtained from flower buds of Eugenia caryophyllata and seeds of Foeniculum vulgare and Carum carvi were extracted by hydrodistillation. The antibacterial potency against local clinical isolate of Helicobacter pylori was tested using agar disc diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) techniques and the chemical composition was determined via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

Results: The GC-MS identified trans-anethole (43.01%), estragole (27.04%) and fenchone (06.63%) as main compounds in F. vulgare oil. Carvone was defined with abundant concentration (63.92%) in the oil extracted from C. carvi together α -pinene (8.43%), whereas the major constituents for E. caryophyllata were eugenol (65.22%), eugenyl acetate (18.77%) and trans-caryophyllene (9.92%). The strongest anti H. pylori activity was exhibited by F. vulgare oil reaching similar action of Clarithromycin (p<0.05) used as positive control.

Conclusion: this is the first report showing the potency of essential oils from spices against H. pylori, the results indicated that these resources can constitute potential natural treatment.