Ahmet Alim

In Vitro Amoebicidal Activity of Salvia staminea and Salvia caespitosa on Acanthamoeba castellanii and Their Cytotoxic Potentials on Corneal Cells

BACKGROUND/AIMS Amoebic keratitis is difficult to treat with total efficacy in some patients because of cysts, which are less susceptible than trophozoites to the usual treatments. We investigated the in vitro effectiveness of methanolic extract of Salvia staminea and Salvia caespitosa against Acanthamoeba castellanii, as well as their cytotoxicity on corneal cells in vitro. METHODS Extracts were evaluated for their amoebicidal activities using an inverted light microscope. The effect of Savia species, with concentrations ranging between 1.0 and 32.0 mg/mL, on the proliferation of A. castellanii trophozoites and cysts were examined in vitro. For determining the cytotoxicity of Salvia species on corneal cells, agar diffusion tests were performed. RESULTS According to the results obtained from these tests, S. staminea showed remarkable amoebicidal effect on A. castellanii. In the case of the cytotoxic activity, methanolic extract of S. staminea showed no cytotoxicity on corneal cells with a concentration of 16 mg/mL. CONCLUSIONS Methanolic extract of S. staminea could be considered a new natural agent against Acanthamoeba. However, further evaluation by in vivo testing is needed to confirm the efficiency of its biological effect.

In Vitro Antimicrobial, Antioxidant, and Antispasmodic Activities and the Composition of the Essential Oil of Origanum acutidens (Hand.-Mazz.) Ietswaart

The radical scavenging, antimicrobial, and antispasmodic activities and the composition of Origanum acutidens (Hand.-Mazz.) Ietswaart (Order Labiatte) essential oil were evaluated in vitro. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis of the oil resulted in the identification of 20 compounds, representing 93.61% of the oil; carvacrol (65%) was the main component. The sample was also subjected to a screening for antioxidant activity by using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl and beta-carotene/linoleic acid assays. The essential oil exhibited strong antioxidant activity. Using the agar disk diffusion method, antimicrobial activities of the essential oils were determined for nine microorganisms; antimicrobial activity was shown against eight of them. O. acutidens oil exhibited spontaneous contractions in rat ileum at the 100% level at 0.1 mg/mL level.

Chemical Composition, Antioxidant, Antimicrobial Activities of the Essential Oil of Salvia hypargeia Fisch. & Mey

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the chemical composition, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of the essential oil of Salvia hypargeia from Turkey. According to the results of GC-EIMS analysis, the major compounds of the oil were determined as Ot-pinene (15.9 %), ß-pinene (22.3 %), pulegone (13.5 %) and ß-ylangene (17.8 %). Essential oil could not show radical scavenging effect in DPPH system. On the other hand, inhibition capacity of the essential oil against linoleic acid oxidation was measured as 21.0 %. In the case of antimicrobial activity, the most sensitive microorganism was B. subtilis which has the lowest MIC value (35.80 µg/ml). This is followed by S. aureus and C. diphteriae (8.45 and 14.20 µg/ml, respectively).