Inhibitory Activity of Ethanol Extract from &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Artemisia argyi&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; on a Clinical Isolate of &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Staphylococcus aureus&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt;

Fan Zhang,Guoping Sun,Liang Xiao,Fan Wang

doi:10.4236/cm.2014.54029

Abstract

As a traditional herbal medicine for the treatment of many disorders, Artemisia argyi has shown many valuable bioactivities, but little is known about its effect on Staphylococcus aureus. In this study, the growth, the biofilm formation and the pathogenicity of S. aureus cultivated with or without ethanol extract of A. argyi were tested using microtitre plate assay, Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (CLSM) system and mice infection assay. Results showed that the growth and the biofilm formation of S. aureus in the test group with ethanol extract of A. argyi were significantly lower than those of the control group without ethanol extract of A. argyi. With CLSM system we could observe that the biofilm structure of the test group had looser and less biomass compared with the control group. After infection of S. aureus, the survival of mice in test group that were given 0.2 mL 100 mg/mL ethanol extracts of A. argyi was higher than the control group. Histopathological analyses showed that the tissue damage of mice in test group was less than that in control group. These results suggested that ethanol extract of A. argyi had inhibitory effect on S. aureus and could protect mice from death induced by S. aureus infection.

Highlights

Artemisia argyi, the Chinese mugwort, is an aromatic plant in the genus Artemisia, which is native to China, Japan, and far-eastern Siberia
After exposure to the extract of A. argyi for 12 h at 37 ̊C, the growth of S. aureus was affected obviously, which was presented by the viable counts on tryptic soy broth (TSB) agar plate after cultivated for 24 h at 37 ̊C
The viable counts of bacteria of the test group containing ethanol extract of A. argyi were decreased significantly compared with the control group without the extract of A. argyi, and the reduce extent was positively correlated with the concentration of the ethanol extract of A. argyi (Figure 1(A))

Summary

Introduction

The Chinese mugwort, is an aromatic plant in the genus Artemisia, which is native to China, Japan, and far-eastern Siberia. It has been used as a traditional herbal medicine for the treatment of microbial infections, inflammatory diseases, hepatitis, diarrhea, cancer, malaria, circulatory system and metabolism disorders [1]-[3]. This plant contains many valuable compounds such as coumarins, flavonoids, glycosides, polyacetylenes, sterols, monoterpenes, triterpenes, essential oils and sesquiterpene lactones, some of which have presented many bioactivities such as antiulcer [4], antidiabetic [5], anti-inflammatory [6], and anticancer [2] activities. There is little information available about its effect on Staphylococcus aureus

Methods

Results

Conclusion