In-vitro anti fungal activity of Propolis alcoholic extract on Candida spp. and Aspergillus spp

Several studies have shown that propolis has antibacterial, antifungal,
antiviral and antiparasitic activity. Furthermore propolis has been described to have
medicinal usages in some fungal infections like Candidiasis. Our aim is to study the
inhibitory effects of alcoholic extract of propolis on Candida spp. and Aspergillus spp.
Methods: To determine inhibitory and fatality dose of propolis extract, we prepared
serial dilution of the extract including 1/20, 1/40, 1/80, 1/160, 1/320 and 1/640 in 1 ml of
liquid medium sabouraud broth. Given numbers of Candida yeasts in 1ml were added to
above dilution tubes. Candida and Aspergillus cultures were incubated at 30°C and 25°C
respectively for 24-72 hours.
Results: We obseved that the concentration of 0.25 g/dl of propolis extract showed an
inhibitory and killing effect on more than 50% of the isolates. But there were no
inhibitory and killing by the concentrations 0.0312 g/dl and 0.0625 g/dl on Candida
isolates. Our findings showed that 0.0312 g/dl of the extract was partially active on
Aspergillus fumigatus and dilution of 0.125 g/dl was active on Aspergillus. niger. In the
agar dilution method, some changes were observed on morphological features (depends
on the extract dilution) as well as quantitative effects of dilution of extract on the
colonies.Conclusion: We found that the alcoholic extract of propolis had a prominent antifungal
activity and inhibitory effect on Candida and Aspergillus isolates