Potential of berberine to enhance antimicrobial activity of commonly used antibiotics for dairy cow mastitis caused by multiple drug-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis infection

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Berberine is a plant alkaloid with antimicrobial activity against a variety of microorganisms. In this study, the antimicrobial properties of berberine against multi-drug resistant field isolates of Staphylococcus epidermidis were investigated using berberine alone or in combination with a commonly used antibiotics in veterinary clinics, including penicillin, lincomycin, and amoxicillin. The results indicated that the minimum inhibitory concentrations of berberine, penicillin, lincomycin, and amoxicillin against field S. epidermidis isolates were 2-512, 0.8-213, 0.4-1024, and 0.4-256 mg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, the synergistic effects of antimicrobial activity against these multi-drug resistant isolates were observed when the berberine was combined with penicillin, lincomycin, or amoxicillin; no antagonistic effect of the combination was detected in any of the clinical isolates.X. Zhou et al. 9684©FUNPEC-RP www.funpecrp.com.br Genetics and Molecular Research 14 (3): 9683-9692 (2015) These observations were further confirmed using a time-killing assay, in which a combination of 2 agents yielded a greater than 2.03-2.44 log 10 decrease in colony-forming unit/mL compared with each agent alone. These findings suggest that berberine is a promising compound for preventing and treating multi-drug resistant S. epidermidis infected mastitis in dairy cows either alone or in combination with other commonly used antibiotics, such as penicillin, lincomycin, and amoxicillin.

Antimicrobial characteristics of Berberine against prosthetic joint infection-related Staphylococcus aureus of different multi-locus sequence types

“…This infers that although berberine displays excellent inhibiting effects against S. aureus while used alone berberine is not sufficient to control S. aureus infections. Therefore, we suggest that berberine be used as an ancillary drug in combination with other antibiotics in S. aureus related PJI control, since berberine shows remarkable synergy effects with a wide range of antibiotics [27, 29, 58, 59]. For example, a study by Zuo et al revealed that berberine significantly lowered the MIC values of a series of antibiotics against S. aureus including MRSA [59].…”

Synergistic effects of natural products and commercial antibiotics—A mini–review 2010–2015

“…Three alkaloids were clearly defined as druggable structures: berberine, platensymicin, platencin (see Tables 1 and 2) . These three alkaloids showed stronger adjuvant potency with a more specific effect than the set of flavonoids tested 33,[46][47][48] , the latter two are being considered to be antibiotics per se and are under further development by Merck pharmaceuticals 48 (see Table 2). The mechanism of action of these three compounds has been proposed to be orthogonal to those of the CADs.…”

“…The mechanism of action of these three compounds has been proposed to be orthogonal to those of the CADs. Further functionalization of their alkaloidal skeletons may allow improvement of their medicinal chemistry 33,[46][47][48] .…”

“…The main antioxidant component in green tea, EGCg, inhibited beta-lactamase (an antibiotic degrading enzyme); EGCg interacts with cell membrane components, disrupting the cell membrane integrity 50,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] . The alkaloid berberin inhibited the efflux pumps with medium specificity-a resistance mechanism-enabling the antibiotics to remain longer periods inside the bacteria to interact with the desired target 46,56,[61][62][63] . Bacterial cell membrane disruption is a non-specific interaction, saponins, other polyphenols and flavonoids 64 , and essential oils can exert this effect as well 36,65 .…”

“…Table 2: Summary of purified natural products screened for antibiotic modulatory effects of commercially available drugs against nosocomial bacteria, that yielded synergistic effects. For more details see text [32][33][34]46,47,51,70,71,[97][98][99][100][101] . is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.…”