Introduction Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness given the spread of antimicrobial-resistant bacterial pathogens. Natural products are potential alternatives to antibiotics. This paper aims to provide insight into the potential antibacterial effect of AhaEO combined with antibiotics in vitro , and to explore the inhibitory effect of the main phytochemical constituents of this essential oil against β-lactamase through computational studies. Materials and methods AhaEO was hydrodistilled and subsequently analysed using GC–MS. The phytochemical compounds were screened as prospective inhibitors of β-lactamase by using molecular docking, and their antibacterial activities against some disease-causing bacteria were assessed by the antimicrobial disk assay and a serial dilution method in microplates. Results The characteristic chemical constituents of this essential oil were: Camphor (30.76%) and Eucalyptol (16.96%). The combinations of AhaEO with antibiotics displayed an antagonism effect, except with AX and TIC. ADMET profiles were favourable, confirming the safe consumption of all tested phytochemicals with no side effects. Among the tested compounds, patchoulane and chrysanthone scored binding energies of (−6.0 kcal/mol) and (−5.1 kcal/mol), respectively. Conclusion This work demonstrated that AhaEO can enhance the antibiotic effect. Additional experiments are necessary to validate the obtained results.
Touhami et al. (Sun,) studied this question.