Role of essential oils for the cure of human pathogenic fungal infections

DI LIBERTO, M.; SVETAZ, L.; CASTELLI, M. V.; RAI, M.; DERITA, M.

Essential Oils and Nanotechnology for Treatment of Microbial Diseases

CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group

Año: 2017; p. 127 - 142

Essential oils (EOs) are complex mixtures of low molecular weight compounds isolated from several plant families, mainly by steam distillation and other simple techniques. Major components which provide characteristic fragrance and biological properties to EOs are terpenoids and phenylpropanoids derivatives from mevalonic and shikimic pathway respectively. They have been use by different medical traditional systems to treat a large number of diseases related to infections since ancient times. Various pharmaceutical and biological activities like, antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, antimutagenic, antidiabetic, antiviral, antiinflammatory, and antiprotozoal properties are assigned to them. Chemical characterization of EOs is extremely important since they often varies in composition depending on different factors like plant variety, nutrition, application of fertilizers, climate, geographic location, seasonal variations, etc. Current status of EOs with antifungal properties against human pathogenic fungi and the importance of searching for new antifungal drugs as well as emerging trends in the pharmaceutical industry are covered in this chapter.