In a previous study, essential oils obtained from the leaves of three Pistacia species were found to have antifungal activity against three species of plant pathogen fungi ( Duru et al., 2003). In another study, the petroleum ether extract of P. vera leaves has also been found to be effective against plant pathogen fungi ( Kordali et al., 2003). Some researchers reported that the mastic gum of P. lentiscus var. chia had antifungal activity against C. albicans ( Iauk et al., 1996) which supports our findings.
As mentioned above, among the extracts, PV-SPS, PV-FK and PV-GU against HSV, PV-GR, PV-GP, PV-IP and PV-FSN against PIV showed the strong antiviral activity identical to acyclovir and oseltamivir, respectively. In our previous work, we had analyzed the lipophylic extracts of P. vera from the view point of the fatty acid compositions. Since these seven extracts contained palmitic and linoleic acids in common, it may be concluded that these fatty acids contribute to the activity of the extract. In another study by Patterson, palmitic acid was also found to have potent antiviral activity against HIV-1 and HIV-2 which support our findings. To our knowledge, our study is the first report about the antifungal and antiviral activities of P. vera against human pathogen fungi. Further research on the isolation and identification of the active principle(s) of these extracts is in progress in our laboratory in order to discover new and potent antiviral and antifungal compound(s).