Synergistic Interaction of Natural Snail Mucin and Lincomycin for Immuno-chemotherapy against Streptopneumococcal Infection: Checkerboard Evaluations

Abstract

Introduction: Pneumonia is an acute infection of lung majorly caused by Streptoneumococcal bacteria or other microbes which present cough with phlegm (mucus), fever and other clinical symptoms. This mucus produced are easily polymerize with other similar natural product like snail mucin when taken which serves as a natural antimicrobial immune booster for enhanced or synergistic response against causative agent in the presence of antibiotics. This work was carried out to determine the combined effect of snail mucin as animal sourced natural product antimicrobial agent with lincomycin against different strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae as alternative treatment option for this respiratory tract infection “pneumonia” which has been a global challenge especially in the tropical Africa. Methods: Separate solution each of the two agent was prepared in sterile normal saline to get a different concentration of the agents, each solution contained twice the MIC of the agent. The agents were then combined in different ratios for interaction effect by adopting the standard continuous variation method and further diluted using two-fold serially dilutions and evaluated against the test organisms using both agar diffusion and dilution method respectively. Results: The result of FIC index was calculated showed greater synergy in the equal ratio (50:50) combination against all the strains of tested organisms. Also, better performance at the combinations ratios of 60:40 and 40:60 of mucin and lincomycin respectively emerged. Conclusion: This synergistic effect has shown an improved natural product immuno-antimicrobial chemotherapy for alternative treatment option of such acute infection in the absent orthodox medicine.