Improvement of in vitro antimicrobial and antifungal activities of peppermint essential oil conjugated with chitosan and promising antiviral properties

Abstract

The emergence of antimicrobial resistance has necessitate the new approaches. The peppermint (Mentha piperita L.) (PEO) oil is known for its antimicrobial and antifungal activities. However, the employing of it in practial applications is troublesome because of the sensitivity to the environmental conditions. Thus, it was immolized into chitosan to eliminate the difficulties in its use and increase its activity. It was observed that the immobilization of the PEO into the chitosan (PEO@Chitosan) influenced the biological activities resulting in less minimum Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) values in addition to protecting the essential oil by the chitosan as environment-friendly biomaterial. The determined MIC values of the target product (PEO@Chitosan) are between 0.001-0.95 mg/mL for the studied bacterial strains and 0.006-0.36 mg/mL for the studied fungi isolates, which led us to consider them as new therapeutic alternative. In vitro antiviral studies gave us that even if the encapsulation of the essential oil into the chitosan made the prepared product still promising as acandidate for the antiviral therapy treatment.