Allicin Reduces the Production of α-Toxin by Staphylococcus aureus

Molecules

Bing-Feng Leng¹  Jia-Zhang Qiu¹  Xiao-Han Dai¹  Jing Dong¹  Jian-Feng Wang¹  Ming-Jing Luo¹  Hong-En Li¹  Xiao-Di Niu¹  Yu Zhang¹  Yong-Xing Ai¹ 

[1] ¹Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Ministry of Education, Institute of Zoonosis, College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun 130062, China ²College of Quartermaster Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130062, China ^†These authors contributed equally to this work.

关键词: Staphylococcus aureus;    α-toxin;    allicin;    sub-inhibitory concentrations;   

DOI  :  10.3390/molecules16097958

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Staphylococcus aureus causes a broad range of life-threatening diseases in humans. The pathogenicity of this micro-organism is largely dependent upon its virulence factors. One of the most extensively studied virulence factors is the extracellular protein α-toxin. In this study, we show that allicin, an organosulfur compound, was active against S. aureus with MICs ranged from 32 to 64 μg/mL. Haemolysis, Western blot and real-time RT-PCR assays were used to evaluate the effects of allicin on S. aureus α-toxin production and on the levels of gene expression, respectively. The results of our study indicated that sub-inhibitory concentrations of allicin decreased the production of α-toxin in both methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, the transcriptional levels of agr (accessory gene regulator) in S. aureus were inhibited by allicin. Therefore, allicin may be useful in the treatment of α-toxin-producing S. aureus infections.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.