Abstract

BackgroundAntibacterial activity of honey is mainly dependent on a combination of its peroxide activity and non-peroxide components. This study aims to investigate antibacterial activity of five varieties of Malaysian honey (three monofloral; acacia, gelam and pineapple, and two polyfloral; kelulut and tualang) against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.MethodsMinimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) were performed for semi-quantitative evaluation. Agar well diffusion assay was used to investigate peroxide and non-peroxide activities of honey.ResultsThe results showed that gelam honey possessed lowest MIC value against S. aureus with 5% (w/v) MIC and MBC of 6.25% (w/v). Highest MIC values were shown by pineapple honey against E. coli and P. aeruginosa as well as acacia honey against E. coli with 25% (w/v) MIC and 50% (w/v) MBC values. Agar inhibition assay showed kelulut honey to possess highest total antibacterial activity against S. aureus with 26.49 equivalent phenol concentrations (EPC) and non-peroxide activity of 25.74 EPC. Lowest antibacterial activity was observed in acacia honey against E. coli with total activity of 7.85 EPC and non-peroxide activity of 7.59 EPC. There were no significant differences (p > 0.05) between the total antibacterial activities and non-peroxide activities of Malaysian honey. The intraspecific correlation between MIC and EPC of E. coli (r = -0.8559) was high while that between MIC and EPC of P. aeruginosa was observed to be moderate (r = -0.6469). S. aureus recorded a smaller correlation towards the opposite direction (r = 0.5045). In contrast, B.cereus showed a very low intraspecific correlation between MIC and EPC (r = -0.1482).ConclusionsMalaysian honey, namely gelam, kelulut and tualang, have high antibacterial potency derived from total and non-peroxide activities, which implies that both peroxide and other constituents are mutually important as contributing factors to the antibacterial property of honey.

Highlights

  • Antibacterial activity of honey is mainly dependent on a combination of its peroxide activity and non-peroxide components

  • A high amount of active glucose oxidase will hydrolyze glucose to produce hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) resulting in oxidative stress which is beneficial in controlling bacterial colonization

  • This study investigated the antibacterial potential of five Malaysian honey varieties against four bacteria species, namely, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which are widely known to cause multidrug-resistant healthcare-associated infections, as well as Bacillus cereus to represent the spore-forming bacteria species known to cause food poisoning [17,18,21,22]

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Summary

Introduction

Antibacterial activity of honey is mainly dependent on a combination of its peroxide activity and non-peroxide components. Two important enzymes known to contribute to the major biological activities of honey are bee-origin glucose oxidase and floral-origin catalase [1] These enzymes are crucial in determining the level of peroxide activity in honey which underlies numerous biological functions, including antibacterial potency. Some types of honey, such as manuka honey from New Zealand, possess high non-peroxide antibacterial activity that can retain antibacterial potency even after removing the peroxide component from diluted honey [3,4]. This is known as active non-peroxide honey which contains numerous non-peroxide constituents that support antibacterial actions. Some are strongly peroxide-dependent and possess very low antibacterial action when treated with catalase to remove peroxide activity [3,4,7]

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