Investigating the antifungal effects of Perforatum Hypericum oil nanoemulsion on Candida albicans

Abstract

Background: Every year, we see a large microbial and fungal growth in acrylic resin bases. Oral stomatitis is one of the common infections related to dentures, which is seen in the form of diffuse inflammation, mainly with Candida albicans fungus. The aim of the present study was to investigate the antifungal effects of Hypericum Perforatum oil nanoemulsion against Candida albicans. Hypericum Perforatum oil nanoemulsion has been prepared in another thesis and its physicochemical properties and stability have been evaluated. Materials and methods: In this in vitro study, in order to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration of Hypericum Perforatum oil nanoemulsion, microdilution technique was used inside microplates. The study had 4 groups (Hypericum Perforatum oil, Hypericum Perforatum oil nanoemulsion, an inert oil as a negative control and nystatin as a positive control). The prepared microplate was incubated for 24 hours at 37°C and then 50 cells from each well of the microplate were inoculated separately on dextrose agar culture medium. The first concentration of nanoemulsion in which no clear fungal growth was observed in the culture medium was considered as the minimum inhibitory concentration and the first concentration in which the fungal growth was completely stopped and no fungal growth was observed on the culture medium plates was considered as the minimum fungicide concentration. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare the results between groups. The significance level in all tests was considered less than 0.05. Results: It was observed that both non-nano form and nano form of this extract showed good antifungal activity against Candida albicans. The nanoemulsion form had better results than the non-nano form of Hypericum Perforatum oil. The minimum inhibitory concentration and the minimum fungicide concentration of the nanoemulsion form were lower than the non-nanoemulsion form (P<0.05). Among the studied groups, the nystatin group had the best effect (P<0.05). Conclusion: Considering the different antifungal mechanisms and also the different resistance mechanisms of nystatin and Hypericum Perforatum oil nanoemulsion, the prepared nanoemulsion can be used to treat and reduce the population of nystatin-resistant Candida albicans strain. However, the efficiency of these materials needs to be confirmed in larger studies on resistant strains.