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Antibacterial Activity of Essential Oil from Ripe Berries of Juniperus oxycedrus L. Against Multi-drug Resistant Pathogens Responsible for Skin Infections in Burn Patients

Abstract This study aimed to investigate the phytochemical composition and antibacterial activity of essential oil of ripe berries of Juniperus oxycedrus L. against multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains, which were isolated from wound infections among burn patients. The isolation of essential oil was carried out by hydrodistillation and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In vitro antibacterial activity was determined by the disc diffusion method against the bacterial isolates. The chromatographic analysis revealed that the chemical composition of the essential oil is dominated by monoterpenes (75.40%), among which α-pinene was detected at 56.39%. The predominant strains of bacteria isolated from the infected wounds included Staphyloccocus aureus (35.29%), followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (17.64%), Proteus mirabilis (14.70%), Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus epidermidis at the same level (11.76%), while Acinetobacter baumannii was found to be the least with only at 6.67%. These isolates showed high resistance to at least three different classes of the challenged antibiotics. J. oxycedrus L. essential oil has strong antibacterial activity against all the tested strains. The lowest minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was observed for Staphylococcus epidermidis (1.25 μL/mL), while the highest MIC was observed for Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumanii (5 μL/mL). These findings confirm that essential oil isolated from J. oxycedrus could be used to treat or prevent infections in patients suffering from burns.