pharmaceuticals Review Manuka¯ Oil—A Review of Antimicrobial and Other Medicinal Properties Cynthia Mathew 1, Wubshet Tesfaye 1 , Phil Rasmussen 2, Gregory M Peterson 1,3 , Andrew Bartholomaeus 1,4 , Manab Sharma 1 and Jackson Thomas 1,* 1 Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra 2617, Australia;
[email protected] (C.M.);
[email protected] (W.T.);
[email protected] (G.M.P.);
[email protected] (A.B.);
[email protected] (M.S.) 2 Phytomed Medicinal Herbs Ltd., Auckland 1026, New Zealand;
[email protected] 3 Tasmanian School of Pharmacy, University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, Australia 4 Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 14 September 2020; Accepted: 9 October 2020; Published: 26 October 2020 Abstract: Manuka¯ oil is an essential oil derived from Leptospermum scoparium, a plant that has been used by the indigenous populations of New Zealand and Australia for centuries. Both the extracted oil and its individual components have been associated with various medicinal properties. Given the rise in resistance to conventional antibiotics, natural products have been targeted for the development of antimicrobials with novel mechanism of action. This review aimed to collate available evidence on the antimicrobial, anti-parasitic and anti-inflammatory activities of manuka¯ oil and its components. A comprehensive literature search of was conducted using PubMed and Embase (via Scopus) targeting articles from database inception until June 2020. Chemical structures and IUPAC names were sourced from PubChem. Unpublished information from grey literature databases, Google search, targeted websites and Google Patents were also included.