Ricerc@Sapienza

Satureja montana essential oil (SEO) presents a wide range of biological activities due to its high content of active phytochemicals. In order to improve the essential oil’s (EO) properties, oil in water nanoemulsions (NEs) composed of SEO and Tween-80 were prepared, characterized, and their antimicrobial and antibiofilm properties assayed against Escherichia coli strains isolated from healthy chicken.

Brain infections as meningitis and encephalitis are attracting a great interest. Challenges in the treatment of these diseases are mainly represented by the blood brain barrier (BBB) that impairs the efficient delivery of even very potent drugs to reach the brain. The nose to the brain administration route, is a non-invasive alternative for a quick onset of action, and enables the transport of numerous medicinal agents straight to the brain thus workarounding the BBB through the highly vascularized olfactory region.

The aim of the present work is to develop nanoemulsions (NEs), nanosized emulsions, manufactured for
improving the delivery of active pharmaceutical ingredients. In particular, nanoemulsions composed of
Neem seed oil, contain rich bioactive components, and Tween 20 as nonionic surfactant were prepared.
A mean droplet size ranging from 10 to 100nm was obtained by modulating the oil/surfactant ratio.
Physicochemical characterisation was carried out evaluating size, f-potential, microviscosity, polarity and

Chemical fingerprints of four different Satureja montana L. essential oils (SEOs) were assayed by an untargeted metabolomics approach based on Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometry (MS) coupled with either electrospray ionization or atmospheric pressure chemical ionization ion sources. Analysis and relative quantification of the non-polar volatile fraction were conducted by gas chromatography (GC) coupled to MS.