A research team at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology and the KU Leuven Department of Biology showed that, contrary to generally held belief, most components of essential oils could meet the criteria set for drug candidates.
A research team at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology and the KU Leuven Department of Biology showed that, contrary to generally held belief, most components of essential oils could meet the criteria set for drug candidates. Essential oil components are the constituents of essential oils, which are complex mixtures of plant metabolites obtained by dry or steam distillation, or by citrus peel pressing.
Revisiting essential oils
The research project, supervised by prof. Patrick Van Dijck (VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology) and prof. Walter Luyten (KU Leuven Department of Biology), is rooted in the observation that in the past decades, drug discovery has mainly shifted to high-throughput screening of large, synthetically produced chemical libraries, while natural product drug research has diminished.
Prof. Van Dijck: "Natural products such as essential oils and their components are often avoided in drug discovery, for example, because they are relatively hydrophobic and volatile. This can cause interference during (high throughput) screening.”
However, recent technical developments combined with restrictions on the use of chemicals led to a renewed interest in natural product drug discovery. Some of the new methods to study essential oils and their components were developed in the laboratory of prof. Van Dijck under the coordination of Dr. Adam Feyaerts, mainly with the aim of finding new antimicrobials, for example antifungal drugs.
Read more at VIB (The Flanders Institute for Biotechnology)
Photo Credit: monicore via Pixabay
