Large-Scale Screening of 239 Traditional Chinese Medicinal Plant Extracts for Their Antibacterial Activities against Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Cytotoxic Activities

Abstract

Novel alternative antibacterial compounds have been persistently explored from plants as natural sources to overcome antibiotic resistance leading to serious foodborne bacterial illnesses. In this study, the ethanolic extracts from 239 traditional Chinese medicinal plants (TCMP)’ materials were screened to discover promising candidates that have strong antibacterial properties against multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus (S.) aureus and low cytotoxicity. The results revealed that 74 extracts exhibited good antibacterial activities (diameter of inhibition zone (DIZ) ≥ 15 mm). Furthermore, 18 extracts (DIZ ≥ 20 mm) were determined their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) and minimum bactericide concentrations (MBC), ranging from 0.1 to 12.5 mg/mL and 0.78 to 25 mg/mL, respectively. In addition, most of the 18 extracts showed relatively low cytotoxicity (a median lethal concentration (LC50) >100 µg/mL). The 18 extracts were further determined to estimate possible correlation of their phenolic contents with antibacterial activity, and the results did not show any significant correlation. In conclusion, this study selected out some promising antibacterial TCMP extracts with low cytotoxicity, including Rhus chinensis Mill., Ilex rotunda Thunb., Leontice kiangnanensis P.L.Chiu, Oroxylum indicum Vent., Isatis tinctorial L., Terminalia chebula Retz., Acacia catechu (L.f.) Willd., Spatholobus suberectus Dunn, Rabdosia rubescens (Hemsl.) H.Hara, Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, Fraxinus fallax Lingelsh, Coptis chinensis Franch., Agrimonia Pilosa Ledeb., and Phellodendron chinense C.K.Schneid.

Review on the Antibacterial Mechanism of Plant-Derived Compounds against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria (MDR)

“…Several studies reported that allicin could inhibit MDR bacterial growth such as S. aureus , E. coli , MRSA, and P. aeruginosa ; however, this effect is bacteriostatic, which suggested using allicin in combination with other antibiotics [ 175 , 176 ]. As a mechanism, allicin inhibits bacterial enzymes like alcohol dehydrogenase, RNA polymerase, DNA gyrase, as well as inhibition of biofilm formation, DNA, and protein synthesis [ 175 , 177 ]. Allicin presence in garlic was first reported by Cavallito and Bailey in 1944 [ 178 ].…”

“…Allicin presence in garlic was first reported by Cavallito and Bailey in 1944 [ 178 ]. It is a chemically unstable compound that rapidly decomposes to sulfide compounds such as ajoenes, diallyl sulfide (DAS), and diallyl disulfide (DADS) [ 175 ]. Thus, five analogues of allicin had been synthesized to overcome the stability problem [ 179 ].…”

Chinese Herbal Medicine Therapy Reduces the Risks of Overall and Anemia-Related Mortalities in Patients With Aplastic Anemia: A Nationwide Retrospective Study in Taiwan

“…Chu, is a flowering plant of family Rosaceae. XHC exhibits anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and antimicrobial activities (Kim et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2020).…”

Oroxylum indicum (L.) Kurz Bignoniaceae

“…Extracts from the various parts show activity against clinical pathogenic bacteria such as Bacillus cereus, B. subtilis, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus sps., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Shigella dysentriae, S. flexneri, S. sonnei, Staphylococcus aureus, S. intermedius, Streptococcus suis and Vibrio cholera (Ali et al 1998;Uddin et al 2003;Das and Choudhury 2010;Radhika et al 2011;Moirangthem et al 2013;Fan et al 2015;Panda et al 2016;Sithisarn et al 2016Sithisarn et al , 2019SatyaEswari et al 2018;Kim et al 2020), fungal species including Aspergillus fumigates, Candida albicans, and Macrofomina phaeolina (Ali et al 1998;Moirangthem et al 2013), the worm Hymenolepis diminuta (Deori and Yadav 2016), and Chikungunya virus (Mohamat et al 2018).…”