ISHS Acta Horticulturae 678: III WOCMAP Congress on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants - Volume 4: Targeted Screening of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Economics and Law
REVERSING BETA-LACTAM ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE WITH FLAVONOIDS IN GRAM-POSITIVE BACTERIA |
| Authors: | G. Eumkeb, R.M.F. Richards |
| Keywords: | methicillin-resistant S. aureus, traditional herbal remedies, antibacterial agents reverse bacterial resistance, minimum inhibitory concentrations |
| Abstract:
Resistance to  -lactam antibiotics is a global problem.
Today over 90% of Staphylococcus aureus strains are -lactamase positive.
This enzyme cleaves the -lactam ring of the antibiotics and renders it ineffective.
In addition, strains of methicillin-resistant S. aureus, which owe their resistance to modification in the penicillin-binding proteins in the cell walls, are usually multiply resistant to many antibiotics and pose life-threatening risks to the hospitalised patients and their care givers.
Antibiotics available for the treatment of methicillin-resistant S. aureus infection are fairly toxic and their use is frequently associated with unwanted side effects.
The search for new antibacterial agents and compounds that can reverse the resistance to well tried agents which have lost their original effectiveness are research objectives of far reaching importance.
Here we show that naturally occurring flavonoids, which are often present in edible plants and/or traditional herbal remedies, have the potential to reverse bacterial resistance to -lactam antibiotics against some currently almost untreatable organisms.
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