Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance is one of today’s major public health challenges. Infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria have been responsible for an increasing number of deaths in recent decades. These resistant bacteria are also a concern in the food chain, as bacteria can resist common biocides used in the food industry and reach consumers. As a consequence, the search for alternatives to common antimicrobials by the scientific community has intensified. Substances obtained from nature have shown great potential as new sources of antimicrobial activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of five bee venoms, also called apitoxins, against two common foodborne pathogens. A total of 50 strains of the Gram-negative pathogen Salmonella enterica and 8 strains of the Gram-positive pathogen Listeria monocytogenes were tested. The results show that the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were highly influenced by the bacterial genus. The MIC values ranged from 256 to 1024 µg/mL in S. enterica and from 16 to 32 µg/mL in L. monocytogenes. The results of this study demonstrate that apitoxin is a potential alternative agent against common foodborne pathogens, and it can be included in the development of new models to inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria in the food chain.
Highlights
The discovery and development of antimicrobial agents in the first half of the 20th century created a new paradigm
The five tested apitoxins showed antimicrobial activity against all S. enterica and L. monocytogenes strains included in this study
A previous study that evaluated the activity of commercially available apitoxin against oral bacteria such as Enterococcus faecalis and Streptococcus salivarius found minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values between 20 and 40 μg/mL [18], very similar to the results observed in L. monocytogenes in this study
Summary
The discovery and development of antimicrobial agents in the first half of the 20th century created a new paradigm. The use of antimicrobials was generalized, and they were used to treat both human and animal infections [1]. Antimicrobials were, and still are, used for zootechnical purposes in farm animals [1]. Soon after the discovery of antibiotics, the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance was addressed. In his 1945 Nobel Prize lecture, Sir Alexander Fleming stated that “there is the danger that the ignorant man may under dose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant” [2]
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