Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 27, 2025
Measuring Volatile and Non-volatile Antifungal Activity of Biocontrol Products
Published on: December 5, 2020
A comparative study of in-vitro and in-silico anti-candidal activity and GC-MS profiles of snow mountain garlic vs.
Bhupinder Kaur1,2, Nitish Kumar1, Sonam Chawla3
1Defence Institute of High Altitude Research, Defence R&D Organization, Ministry of Defence, Leh-Ladakh, India.
Aim:
The study aimed to profile the volatile phytocomposition of snow mountain garlic (SMG) compared to normal garlic and investigate the anti-Candida efficacy against clinically relevant multi-drug resistant isolates of Candida species.
Methods And Results:
Herein, SMG has shown significantly superior fungicidal power at 2x-MIC dose against C. albicans and C. glabrata in killing kinetic evaluation unlike the fungistatic effect of normal garlic. GC-MS headspace-based profiling of SMG showed 5 unique volatile compounds and a 5-fold higher content of saponins than normal garlic. In an in-silico analysis, cholesta-4,6-dien-3-ol,(3-beta) was uniquely identified in SMG as a potential inhibitor with high binding affinity to the active site of exo-1,3-betaglucan synthase, an established anti-candida drug target crucial for the biofilm matrix formation, thus suggesting a plausible anti-Candida mechanism.
Conclusion:
The in-vitro and in-silico studies have demonstrated the Candida-cidal and anti-biofilm activities of SMG, distinguishing it from the Candida-static efficacy of normal garlic.
Significance And Impact Of The Study:
This is the first report that identifies several phytochemical signatures of SMG along with a potential anti-Candida compound, that is cholesta-4,6-dien-3-ol,(3-beta)-, which appears worthy of detailed studies in the future to explore the utility of SMG as a fungal phytotherapy agent, especially against drug-resistant Candida sp.
