ArticleNatural products and bioprospecting2025
Mechanisms of action and resistance prevention of synergistic thymol and carvacrol combinations with antibiotics in Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter baumannii.
Article in Natural products and bioprospecting, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
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- In Vitro Screening of Short Synthetic Antimicrobial Peptides Toward Food-Relevant Microorganisms: Antifungal Activity and Molecular Docking Analysis.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Thymol as a natural monoterpenoid antibacterial agent: a comprehensive review of applications and current advances.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Mapping Antimicrobial Synergism in Sorbate-Based Ternary Preservative Systems AgainstFoods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Exploring the antibacterial and antibiofilm potential of 1,8-cineole against Escherichia coli through in vitro, gene expression, and in silico analyses.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Potential of Antimicrobial Peptide Synergies for Combating Infectious Diseases in Aquaculture: A Review.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Review
- Synergistic Activity of Eugenol, Cinnamaldehyde, and Carvacrol in Combination with Different Antibacterial Agents Against Multidrug-Resistant Gram-Negative Clinical Isolates.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Action Mechanism of Essential Oils or Their Components Against Pathogenic Bacteria: Literature Review.International journal of microbiology · 2026Review
- Thymol and Limonene as Potent Antimicrobials: Bridging In Vitro Efficacy and Molecular Docking Insights.International journal of microbiology · 2026Article
- The biological screening of aromatic medicinal plant extracts for their potentialFrontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Preliminary Assessment ofGenes · 2025Article
- Synergistic Interactions Between Natural Phenolic Compounds and Antibiotics Against Multidrug-ResistantMicroorganisms · 2025Article
- Hyaluronic Acid/Chitosan/Glycerophosphate-Based In Situ-Forming Hydrogel for Accelerated Wound Healing.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Essential Oils from Wild AlbanianMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Modulation of Antimicrobial Resistance inAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The use of natural products as antibiotic adjuvants to enhance efficacy and mitigate resistance is increasingly recognized as a promising strategy. This study explored five novel synergistic antimicrobial combinations (SACs) of carvacrol (CARV) and three already identified SACs of thymol (THY) with chloramphenicol, gentamicin, and streptomycin against Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter baumannii, critical WHO-listed pathogens, and investigated their mechanisms of action and resistance-prevention capabilities. Despite being isomers, CARV and THY exhibited distinct synergistic effects and fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI) values depending on the antibiotic and bacterial species. The SACs significantly reduced the required antibiotic dose by 4- to 16-fold, with FICI values ranging from 0.25 to 0.5. Growth kinetics revealed that SACs completely inhibited planktonic bacterial growth, outperforming antibiotics alone. Additionally, the SACs demonstrated efficacy in both inhibiting and eradicating biofilms of S. aureus and A. baumannii. Resistance development studies highlighted that neither THY nor CARV induced resistance in these pathogens. Moreover, SACs combining aminoglycosides with THY reduced the emergence of resistance in A. baumannii by up to 32-fold. In S. aureus, THY mitigated gentamicin resistance by 16-fold. CARV exhibited similar, albeit slightly less potent, effects.Mechanistic investigations revealed that THY and CARV exert antimicrobial action by multiple mechanisms, including bacterial membrane depolarization and disruption, efflux pump inhibition, disrupting ATP metabolism and mitigating oxidative stress induced by antibiotics. These findings highlight the potential of SACs to enhance antibiotic efficacy while preventing resistance, positioning them as strong candidates for innovative antimicrobial therapies against multidrug-resistant pathogens.
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