Abstract
BackgroundThe frequent occurrences of antibiotic-resistant biofilm forming pathogens have become global issue since various measures that had been taken to curb the situation led to failure. Euphorbia hirta, is a well-known ethnomedicinal plant of Malaysia with diverse biological activities. This plant has been used widely in traditional medicine for the treatment of gastrointestinal, bronchial and respiratory ailments caused by infectious agents.MethodsIn the present study, chemical compositions of methanol extract of E. hirta L. aerial part was analyzed by gas chromatography and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. A relevant in vitro model was developed to assess the potency of the E. hirta extract to inhibit the bacterial biofilm formation as well as to eradicate the established biofilms. Besides biofilm, E. hirta extract was also evaluated for the inhibition efficacy on planktonic cells using tetrazolium microplate assay. For these purposes, a panel of clinically resistant pathogens and American type culture collection (ATCC) strains were used.ResultsThe methanolic extract of aerial part of E. hirta was predominantly composed of terpenoid (60.5%) which is often regarded as an active entity accountable for the membrane destruction and biofilm cell detachment. The highest antibacterial effect of crude E. hirta extract was observed in the clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of 0.062 mg/ml. The extract also displayed potent biofilm inhibition and eradication activity against P. aeruginosa with minimum biofilm inhibition concentration (MBIC) and minimum biofilm eradication concentration (MBEC) values of 0.25 mg/ml and 0.5 mg/ml, respectively.ConclusionsThe crude methanol extract of E. hirta has proven to have interesting and potential anti-biofilm properties. The findings from this study will also help to establish a very promising anti-infective phytotherapeutical to be exploited in the pharmaceutical industries.
Highlights
The frequent occurrences of antibiotic-resistant biofilm forming pathogens have become global issue since various measures that had been taken to curb the situation led to failure
Gas chromatography (GC) and GC–MS analyses Analyses (GC and GC-MS) of aerial part of E. hirta methanol extract enabled the identification of nineteen chemical compounds showing more than 90% similarity with the standard mass spectra in the library
The standard antibiotic used in this study showed potent antibacterial and anti-biofilm activity due to the fact that they appeared in purest form in contrast to the crude extract which is in complex mixtures of compounds
Summary
The frequent occurrences of antibiotic-resistant biofilm forming pathogens have become global issue since various measures that had been taken to curb the situation led to failure. Euphorbia hirta, is a well-known ethnomedicinal plant of Malaysia with diverse biological activities. This plant has been used widely in traditional medicine for the treatment of gastrointestinal, bronchial and respiratory ailments caused by infectious agents. The emergence of biofilm infections have generated an urgent alarm in research and development field in seeks for novel antimicrobials from ethnomedicinal plant. Biofilms are far more difficult to treat as of bacteria living within are vastly resistant up to 1000 fold higher to potent antibacterial agents which are used as a last resort, including methicillin and vancomycin [5]. In contrast the same bacteria grown under planktonic forms are susceptible to those antibiotics
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