Effect of Honey bee venom against Intensive care units environmental pathogens

Abstract

The objective of this investigation was to focus on the environmental surface contamination with pathogenic organisms contribute to the development of health care-associated infections (HAI) and evaluate effect of bee venom from Apis mellifera pure Carniolan as the antibacterial activity against the Gram-negative bacterial strains of medical importance including Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The microbial burden (MB) associated with commonly touched surfaces in intensive care units (ICUs) was determined by sampling all exposed objects (such as: IV stand, Patient bed rails, Over-bed table, Visitor chair (arms), Nurse call button, Computer monitors, Data input device, etc.). All pathogenic samples were defined biochemically and assigned to their genera and species using RT- PCR technique. Antimicrobial activity of bee venom in vitro created 10, 12, and 10 mm of inhibition zones compared to control (16, 13, and 15 mm) against the previous gram-negative bacteria respectively. On the other hand, in vitro minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) activity of the pathogenic microbial was 50.36, 39.22 and 62.5 mg/ml of E. coli, A. baumannii, and P. aeruginosa respectively. These findings strongly suggest that whole bee venom could be effective antimicrobial agents for bacteria. Spectrophotometric studies, elementary analysis, UV, IR, and MS spectrum of the venom was indicated the presence of higher absorbance of 0.223 at wavelength 399.40 nm. The chemical components of the bee venom were supported the presence of aromatic chain attached to the function groups of amine (NH), carboxylic (COH), and carbonyl (CO). These results indicate that BV inhibits the growth and survival of bacterial strains and that BV may be a useful complementary antimicrobial agent against pathogenic bacteria even if bee venom collected by different methods.