Staphylococcus aureus (S.aureus) is both a colonizer as well as a human pathogen that causes a variety of diseases. Mupirocin is a topical antimicrobial agent which is very effective against S.aureus infection. However, treating the S.aureus infection using mupirocin could be complicated due to biofilm formation. Consequently, resistance to mupirocin occurs and leads to chronic infection. The combination of mupirocin with a compound that has biofilm eradicating effect would be an ideal solution for effectively treating biofilm infections. Therefore, in this study, we have investigated the biofilm inhibitory and eradication effect of mupirocin with three essential oils (Cinnamon Oil (CO), Eugenol (EU) and Eucalyptus Oil (EO)) against sessile S.aureus. From these preliminary results, it was found that the mupirocin-CO (0.2 µg/ml-5.218 mg/ml) combination has a better synergistic antibiofilm effect against sessile S.aureus and the fractional inhibitory concentration index was found to be 0.458. The best combination of mupirocin with CO was loaded into a non-greasy O/W cream. The physico-chemical and microbiological evaluations were carried out for the prepared cream. The prepared cream has better biofilm eradication activity (40%) when compared to a marketed cream (20%).
Keywords: Biofilm; Cinnamon; Eucalyptus; Eugenol; Mupirocin; Staphylococcus aureus.