TESTING ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF SOME ESSENTIAL OILS USING FLOW CYTOMETRY

The use of natural antifungal compounds has become a viable alternative for fighting fungal infections since high rates of resistance to synthetic antifungal compounds has emerged. Classical techniques aimed to routinely investigate fungal susceptibility are often limited when using natural essential oils, because of their instability and great volatility that may lead to false results. In this study, we report the results obtained by classical antimicrobial susceptibility testing techniques and flow cytometry regarding the effect of some volatile oils on different Candida clinical isolates. The obtained results revealed that flow cytometry is a very useful and precise technique in investigating the influence of essential oils on the fungal cells, surpassing the disadvantage of their volatility and thus reducing false results often obtained by using the classical methods.