2024/08/27 by Ilyas Alav, Parisa Pordelkhaki, Judith Rodriguez-Navarro +8 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics · #Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria #Essential Oils and Antimicrobial Activity #Piperaceae Chemical and Biological Studies
paper · doi:10.1099/mic.0.001496
openalex publication_date 2024/08/27 · openalex created_date 2024/08/28 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a significant threat to global public health. Notably, resistance to carbapenem and extended-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics in Gram-negative bacteria is a major impediment to treating infections. Genes responsible for antibiotic resistance are frequently carried on plasmids, which can transfer between bacteria. Therefore, exploring strategies to prevent this transfer and the prevalence of AMR plasmids is timely and pertinent. Here, we show that certain natural product extracts and associated pure compounds can reduce the conjugation of AMR plasmids into new bacterial hosts. Using our established high-throughput fluorescence-based flow cytometry assay, we found that the natural products were more active in reducing transmission of the IncK extended-spectrum β-lactamase-encoding plasmid pCT in Escherichia coli EC958c, compared to Klebsiella pneumoniae Ecl8 carrying the IncFII carbapenemase-encoding plasmid pKpQIL. The exception was the natural product rottlerin, also active in K. pneumoniae . In classical conjugation assays, rottlerin also reduced the conjugation frequency of the IncFII bla NDM-1 carrying plasmid pCPE163 from a clinical K. pneumoniae isolate. Our data indicate that the natural products tested here, in their current molecular structure, reduced conjugation by a small amount, which is unlikely to achieve a large-scale reduction in AMR in bacterial populations. However, certain natural products like rottlerin could provide a foundation for further research into compounds with effective anti-plasmid activity.