The two peptide lantibiotic lacticin 3147 acts synergistically with polymyxin to inhibit Gram negative bacteria

BMC Microbiology

Research Article

Paul D Cotter¹  R Paul Ross¹  Lorraine A Draper²  Colin Hill³ 

[1] Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland;Teagasc Food Research Centre, Moorepark, Fermoy, County Cork, Ireland;Department of Microbiology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland;Department of Microbiology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland;Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland;

关键词: Antimicrobial;    Synergy;    Lantibiotic;    Bacteriocin;    Lacticin 3147;    Polymyxin;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2180-13-212

 received in 2013-08-07, accepted in 2013-09-19,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe emergence of bacterial drug resistance encourages the re-evaluation of the potential of existing antimicrobials. Lantibiotics are post-translationally modified, ribosomally synthesised antimicrobial peptides with a broad spectrum antimicrobial activity. Here, we focussed on expanding the potential of lacticin 3147, one of the most studied lantibiotics and one which possesses potent activity against a wide range of Gram positive species including many nosocomial pathogens. More specifically, our aim was to investigate if lacticin 3147 activity could be enhanced when combined with a range of different clinical antibiotics.ResultsInitial screening revealed that polymyxin B and polymyxin E (colistin) exhibited synergistic activity with lacticin 3147. Checkerboard assays were performed against a number of strains, including both Gram positive and Gram negative species. The resultant fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) index values established that, while partial synergy was detected against Gram positive targets, synergy was obvious against Gram negative species, including Cronobacter and E. coli.ConclusionsCombining lacticin 3147 with low levels of a polymyxin could provide a means of broadening target specificity of the lantibiotic, while also reducing polymyxin use due to the lower concentrations required as a result of synergy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Draper et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.