Bioassay-guided discovery of antibacterial agents: in vitro screening of Peperomia vulcanica, Peperomia fernandopoioana and Scleria striatinux

Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials

Research

Moses N Ngemenya¹  Ashime Louis Abawah¹  Njimoh Dieudonne Lemuh¹  Kennedy D Nyongbela²  Smith B Babiaka²  Lina N Nubed²  James A Mbah²  Simon MN Efange² 

[1] Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, University of Buea, P.O. Box 63, Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon;Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Buea, P.O. Box 63, Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon;

关键词: Resistance;    Medicinal plants;    Antibacterial compound;    Toxicity;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-0711-11-10

 received in 2011-12-23, accepted in 2012-05-01,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe global burden of bacterial infections is high and has been further aggravated by increasing resistance to antibiotics. In the search for novel antibacterials, three medicinal plants: Peperomia vulcanica, Peperomia fernandopoioana (Piperaceae) and Scleria striatinux (Cyperaceae), were investigated for antibacterial activity and toxicity.MethodsCrude extracts of these plants were tested by the disc diffusion method against six bacterial test organisms followed by bio-assay guided fractionation, isolation and testing of pure compounds. The minimum inhibitory (MIC) and minimum bactericidal (MBC) concentrations were measured by the microdilution method. The acute toxicity of the active extracts and cytotoxicity of the active compound were performed in mice and mammalian cells, respectively.ResultsThe diameter of the zones of inhibition (DZI) of the extracts ranged from 7–13 mm on Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus of which the methylene chloride:methanol [1:1] extract of Scleria striatinux recorded the highest activity (DZI = 13 mm). Twenty-nine pure compounds were screened and one, Okundoperoxide, isolated from S. striatinux, recorded a DZI ranging from 10–19 mm on S. aureus. The MICs and MBCs indicated that the Peperomias had broad-spectrum bacteriostatic activity. Toxicity tests showed that Okundoperoxide may have a low risk of toxicity with an LC50 of 46.88 μg/mL.ConclusionsThe antibacterial activity of these plants supports their use in traditional medicine. The pure compound, Okundoperoxide, may yield new antibacterial lead compounds following medicinal chemistry exploration.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Mbah et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. 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.