Nanoencapsulated Essential Oils with Enhanced Antifungal Activity for Potential Application on Agri-Food, Material and Environmental Fields

Nanotechnology is a new frontier of this century that finds applications in various fields ofscience with important effects on our life and on the environment. Nanoencapsulation of bioactivecompounds is a promising topic of nanotechnology. The excessive use of synthetic compounds withantifungal activity has led to the selection of resistant fungal species. In this context, the use of plantessential oils (EOs) with antifungal activity encapsulated in ecofriendly nanosystems could be a newand winning strategy to overcome the problem. We prepared nanoencapsules containing the essentialoils of Origanum vulgare (OV) and Thymus capitatus (TC) by the nanoprecipitation method. Thecolloidal suspensions were characterized for size, polydispersity index (PDI), zeta potential, efficiencyof encapsulation (EE) and loading capacity (LC). Finally, the essential oil nanosuspensions wereassayed against a panel of fourteen fungal strains belonging to the Ascomycota and Basidiomycotaphyla. Our results show that the nanosystems containing thyme and oregano essential oils wereactive against various fungal strains from natural environments and materials. In particular, theminimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) valueswere two to four times lower than the pure essential oils. The aqueous, ecofriendly essential oilnanosuspensions with broad-spectrum antifungal activity could be a valid alternative to syntheticproducts, finding interesting applications in the agri-food and environmental fields.