Antifungal Effect Of Hubballi Propolis On Candida Albicans - An In Vitro Study

BACKGROUNDAs the longevity of human lives has increased, the geriatric population is increasing demonstrating more number of oral candidal infections due to decreased immunity. Natural products are being investigated to be used to treat oral candidiasis in place of synthetic drugs in selective geriatric cases. Propolis is one such natural product, which is time tested and developed by nature as an antimicrobial agent. Its toxicity is very less. It can be used in multiple forms. It has the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties apart from antibiotic properties and potency of the material improves as it matures with time. But the constituents of Propolis differ with the different sources of procurement. We wanted to evaluate the efficacy of the Propolis procured from Hubballi against Candida albicans in this study.METHODSIn this invitro study, Hubballi Propolis was extracted by maceration and refluxing. Water and 70 % ethanol were used as extraction solvents. Total Phenolic and flavonoid contents were determined by using Folin - Ciocalteu spectrophotometric method and Aluminium chloride colorimetric method respectively. Antimicrobial sensitivity effect of Propolis was estimated by determining the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the samples.RESULTSThe results of the studies revealed that propolis samples have effective antifungal activity against Candida albicans with MIC range from 0.01mg / ml to 0.03 mg / ml and comparable high total phenolic (TP) and total flavonoid (TF) contents ranging from 175.4 +/- 5.7 to 192.2 +/- 3.3 and 33.08 +/- 10 to 31.73 +/- 8.5 mg / ml respectively.CONCLUSIONSHubballi Propolis can be used for treating Candidal infection. Further, water extract Propolis showed better in total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) than the alcohol extract. This finding is important to overcome the disadvantage of alcohol extract and hence very useful for application in Dentistry, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industry.