Essential Oil from Tagetes minuta Has Antiquorum Sensing and Antibiofilm Potential against Pseudomonas aeruginosa Strain PAO1

Abstract

Biofilms are complex communities of microorganisms that are enclosed in a matrix that shows increased resistance to antimicrobial and immunological encounters. Mostly, the traditional methods to control biofilm are exhausted; therefore, the aim is to evaluate the potential of essential oil (EO) from Tagetes minuta to encounter biofilm and other related virulence factors. The EO of T. minuta was extracted through steam-distillation, analyzed on gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, and the biofilm inhibition assays were performed with various concentrations of EO. Mainly the EO from T. minuta contains cis-β-ocimene (29.1%), trans-tagetenone (23.1%), and cis-tagetenone (17.7%). The virulence factors were monitored while applying different concentrations of EO and it was recorded that the EO from T. minuta significantly inhibited the virulence factors linked with quorum sensing (QS), such as pyocyanin production, protease production, and swarming motility. Biofilm formation is one of the most important virulence factors associated with the QS pathway and was inhibited up to 79% in the presence of EO. Antibacterial activity against the PAO1 of EO was not so promising particularly and it has high MIC (325 μg/mL) and MBC (5000 μg/mL). EO is quite efficient to inhibit biofilm in a very small concentration of 20 μg/mL, which confirms that the biofilm inhibition by EO is not by killing bacterial cells but by inhibiting the QS pathway. The study on PAO1 constructs carrying various QS reported genes confirmed that the EO interferes with the QS pathway that ultimately controls various virulence factors caused by PAO1.

Chemical Composition of Essential Oils from Natural Populations of Artemisia scoparia Collected at Different Altitudes: Antibacterial, Mosquito Repellent, and Larvicidal Effects

“…The antibacterial activity of the A. scoparia essential oils was determined in two ways, i.e., the determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC), as well as the determination of bacterial growth inhibition. The broth dilution method was used to check the antibacterial potential of the A. scoparia essential oil samples [ 41 ]. For this, freshly grown colonies of bacteria were suspended in 4 mL of sterilized distilled water and the optical density of the suspension was adjusted to the equivalent of the 0.5 McFarland standard; it contained 10 8 colony-forming units per mL (CFU/mL).…”