• Evaluation of Antibacterial Effect of Four Skin Penetration Enhancers Against Gram Positive and Gram Negative Bacteria
  • Davar Mohammadpour ,1,* Arash Mahboubi ,2
    1. Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran.
    2. Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran.


  • Introduction: Antimicrobial resistance and its rapid increase is a major concern of global public health and Infections with drug resistant bacteria has became an important problem in clinical practice. Treating Bacterial infections by antibiotics is beneficial but the use of antibacterial agents resulted in the selection of resistant bacteria as well as led to reemergence of old infectious diseases. So, developing new antimbacterial agents from various sources is one approach to fight bacterial resistance. In the present study the antimicrobial effect of four widely used penetration enhancers including oleic acid, and three essential oils cineolel,Terpineol and Carveol were evaluated by determination of Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations (MIC) value
  • Methods: The antibacterial effect of oleic acid, and three essential oils (cineolel,Terpineol and Carveol) were evaluated by determination of the MIC value against 3 Gram positive and 3 Gram negative microorganisms: S. aureus ATCC25923, MRSA ATCC33591, B.subtilis ATCC6633, E. Coli ATCC25922, S. typhimurium ATCC14028, P. aeruginosa ATCC27853. MICs were determined by broth micro-dilution method according to CLSI recommended method. Vancomycin and gentamicin were used as negative control.
  • Results: The results of broth micro-dilution method demonstrated that all four substances had inhibitory effect against all six bacterial strains. Analysis of antimicrobial effects demonstrated that Carveol has higher inhibitory effect on Gram negative microorganisms and Terpineole has higher inhibitory effect on Gram positive microorganisms. Mic value for Carveol against S. aureus is 3.125 mg/ml, and 3.125 mg/ml against MRSA ,and 1.56 mg/ml against B.subtilis. Also, Mic value for Terpineol against E.coli is 2.5 mg/ml, and 5 mg/ml against MRSA ,and 5 mg/ml against P. aeruginosa
  • Conclusion: As outcome shows that Carveol has higher inhibitory effect on Gram positive microorganisms in comparison to Terpineol,Cineole and Oleic acid,It has the potential to be used in transdermal products to prevent infection or enhance the effect of the antibiotics in dermal infections.
  • Keywords: microbial resistance, enhancer, anti microbial effect, MIC,Carveolole