ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Review Article | Open Access
Preeti Singh1,2, Satish Sardana1 , Shiv Kr Yadav2, Navidha Aggarwal3, Hitesh Chopra4,5 and Kuldeep Dhama6
1Amity Institute of Pharmacy, Amity University, Manesar, Gurugram, Haryana, India.
2B.S. Anangpuria Institute of Pharmacy, Faridabad, Haryana, India.
3MM College of Pharmacy, Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University), Mullana,
Ambala, Haryana, India.
4Department of Biosciences, Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
5Centre for Research Impact and Outcome, Chitkara College of Pharmacy, Chitkara University, Rajpura, Punjab, India.
6Division of Pathology, ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly, Izatnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Article Number: 9721 | © The Author(s). 2024
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2024;18(4):2163-2187. https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.18.4.05
Received: 10 July 2024 | Accepted: 27 August 2024 | Published online: 06 November 2024
Issue online: December 2024
Abstract

The recurrence and relapse of vaginal infections in women is a major issue and a challenging pathway to identify and develop new approaches to treatment. In the case of antibiotic therapy, contraceptives, and dietary changes, the recurrence of vaginitis is more common these days. Anaerobic bacteria, Candida spp., and trichomonas in the vaginal microflora cause both symptomatic and asymptomatic vaginitis, which includes vaginal inflammation. It changes the vaginal microbiota and decreases Lactobacilli spp. growth, which is maintaining the vaginal pH (3.5-4.5) through lactic acid production, antimicrobial peptides, bacteriocin, and bacteriocin-like inhibitory substances. The remarkable antimicrobial activity of plant’s producing metabolites like alkaloids, tannins, phenolic compounds, flavonoids and terpenoids for several vaginal infections have been reported in previous studies. Presented review focuses on the pivotal role of monoterpenes, providing a detailed description of thymol, geraniol, limonene, eugenol, eucalyptol, and α-terpineol as antimicrobial molecules in the treatment of vaginal infections. These monoterpenes are very good at killing E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aspergillus niger, Trichomonas vaginalis and Candida albicans which are the main microbes that cause vaginitis. Future research could explore the latent combinations of such monoterpenes as synergistic antimicrobial agents to treat bacterial and fungal vaginal infections, trichomoniasis, among other conditions.

Keywords

Vaginal Infections, Bacterial Vaginosis, Vulvovaginal Candidiasis, Trichomoniasis, Monoterpenes, Antimicrobial Molecule

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© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.