bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/130898

High Activity Of Selective Essential Oils Against Stationary Phase Borrelia burgdorferi As A Persister Model

Feng, J.·Zhang, S.·Shi, W.·Zubcevik, N.·Miklossy, J.·Zhang, Y.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Although the majority of patients with Lyme disease can be cured with the standard 2-4 week antibiotic treatment, about 10-20% of patients continue to suffer from post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). While the cause for this is debated, one possibility is due to persisters not killed by the current Lyme antibiotics. It has been reported that essential oils have antimicrobial activities and some have been used by patients with persisting Lyme disease symptoms. However, the activity of essential oils against the causative agent Borrelia burgdorferi (B. burgdorferi) has not been carefully studied. Here, we evaluated the activity of 34 essential oils against B. burgdorferi stationary phase culture as a model for persisters. We found that many essential oils had varying degrees of activity against B. burgdorferi, with top 5 essential oils (oregano, cinnamon bark, clove bud, citronella, and wintergreen) at a low concentration of 0.25% showing more activity than the persister drug daptomycin. Interestingly, some highly active essential oils were found to have excellent anti-biofilm ability as shown by their ability to dissolve the aggregated biofilm-like structures. The top 3 hits, oregano, cinnamon bark and clove bud, completely eradicated all viable cells without regrowth in subculture. Carvacrol was found to be the most active ingredient of oregano oil showing excellent activity against B. burgdorferi stationary phase cells, while p-cymene and -terpinene had no apparent activity. Future studies are needed to characterize and optimize the active essential oils in drug combinations in vitro and in vivo for improved treatment of persistent Lyme disease.\n\nIMPORTANCEThere is a huge need for effective treatment of patients with Lyme disease who suffer from PTLDS. Recent in vitro and in vivo studies suggest that B. burgdorferi develops persisters that are not killed by the current Lyme antibiotics as a possible contributor to this condition. Although essential oils are used by patients with Lyme disease with variable improvement in symptoms, their anti-borrelia activity has not been carefully studied. Here we found that not all essential oils have adequate anti-borrelia activity and identified some highly potent essential oils (oregano, cinnamon bark, clove bud) that have even higher anti-persister and anti-biofilm activity than the persister drug daptomycin. Carvacrol was found to be the most active ingredient of oregano oil and have the potential to serve as a promising oral persister drug. Our findings may have implications for developing improved treatment of persisting Lyme disease.

Source connections

Explore related subjects

microbiologyPreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Feng, J., Zhang, S., Shi, W., Zubcevik, N., Miklossy, J., Zhang, Y.. 2017-05-17. High Activity Of Selective Essential Oils Against Stationary Phase Borrelia burgdorferi As A Persister Model. https://doi.org/10.1101/130898

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Lipopolysaccharide and Wzi retain capsular polysaccharide at the Klebsiella pneumoniae cell surface and promote bloodstream infection fitness

Bacterial capsules are formed by individual capsular polysaccharide (CPS) polymers and are the outermost extracellular layers of many Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Capsules affect several aspects of bacterial biology, including resistance to host immune factors, survival in unfavorable environments and antimicrobial resistance. Research on CPS biology has largely focused on its synthesis and the pathogenic consequences of its presence or absence. Beyond synthesis, our understanding of its retention (attachment) on the cell surface is limited. Klebsiella pneumoniae is an important Gram-negative pathogen and expresses more than 80 capsular serotypes using the common Wzy-dependent CPS biosynthesis system and phenotypically manifests in various forms, making this species an attractive bacterial model to study the underexplored aspects of CPS biology. Here, we identified and characterized bacterial components involved in CPS retention in K. pneumoniae and assessed the importance of CPS retention on bloodstream fitness. Our examination revealed that lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and the outer-membrane protein, Wzi, collectively retain K. pneumoniae CPS on the bacterial surface. We demonstrate that the core-oligosaccharide domain of LPS and the extracellular surface of Wzi likely provide anchoring sites for CPS on the bacterial surface. Furthermore, CPS retention depends on divalent cation availability. Importantly, CPS retention on the bacterial surface is important for survival in serum and bacterial fitness at secondary infection sites in a murine bacteremia model. Together, our findings demonstrate that the functional importance of CPS to bacteria extends beyond synthesis and its overall abundance. Bacterial control over other CPS properties, like cell surface retention, are also important for K. pneumoniae fitness during bacteremia.

microbiology↗
bioRxiv2026

Systematic analysis reveals an Mln1-dependent trade-off between metabolic flexibility and thermotolerance in Cryptococcus neoformans

During infection, fungal pathogens must adapt to multiple environmental challenges, including changes in temperature, nutrient availability, and immune stress. Although transcriptional regulators are central to these adaptations, how individual regulators contribute to distinct environmental responses and how these responses are functionally interconnected remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated the functions of infection-associated transcription factors under distinct host-relevant conditions in Cryptococcus neoformans. Integrating in vivo expression profiling with infectivity data from signature-tagged mutagenesis, we prioritized 24 transcription factors, 12 of which were induced under host-mimicking conditions. Initial functional analyses revealed distinct roles for these transcription factors in adaptation to temperature, carbon, and nitrogen availability. Further characterization of Mln1, a fungal basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor, uncovered an unexpected connection between carbon source adaptation and thermotolerance. Mig1-dependent repression limited MLN1 expression in the presence of glucose, whereas Mln1 accumulated in the nucleus in the presence of trehalose or ethanol, but not glucose. Loss of MLN1 impaired carbon-starvation gene expression and growth on non-preferred carbon sources, particularly trehalose. Conversely, mln1{Delta} cells accumulated more intracellular trehalose and exhibited enhanced thermotolerance, yet showed reduced melanization, titan cell formation, virulence in Drosophila, and brain fungal burden in mice. Together, these results suggest that Mln1 contributes to metabolic flexibility and fungal virulence while differentially influencing thermotolerance. More broadly, these findings highlight a potential physiological trade-off between nutrient utilization and stress resistance, suggesting that these adaptive processes may be interconnected in fungal pathogens.

microbiology↗
bioRxiv2026

The large conjugative plasmid pAB3 integrates into the chromosome of Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 17978

ATCC 17978 is one of the most utilised lab strains of Acinetobacter baumannii. Current literature suggests ATCC 17978 can have either a sulfamethoxazole-resistant phenotype or have the type VI secretion system (T6SS) switched on depending on the presence/absence of the large conjugative plasmid pAB3, which encodes the antimicrobial resistance gene (ARG) sul2 and T6SS repressors tetR1/tetR2. Here, we show that pAB3 integrates into the ATCC 17978 chromosome, which enables a large inversion resulting in the chromosomal arrangement labelled GS2.24 by Socru. This integration has no transcriptional impact on nearby genes or tetR1/tetR2. We find several instances were a portion of integrated pAB3 containing tetR2 is lost but the rest of the sequence, including sul2, is maintained, suggesting pAB3 integration may serve to make further rearrangements more tractable, enabling a putative T6SS+ sulfamethoxazole-resistant phenotype.

microbiology↗