Priya, K.; Yin, W.-F.; Chan, K.-G. Anti-Quorum Sensing Activity of the Traditional Chinese Herb, Phyllanthus amarus. Sensors 2013, 13, 14558-14569.
Abstract
The discovery of quorum sensing in Proteobacteria and its function in regulating virulence determinants makes it an attractive alternative towards attenuation of bacterial pathogens. In this study, crude extracts of Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn, a traditional Chinese herb, were screened for their anti-quorum sensing properties through a series of bioassays. Only the methanolic extract of P. amarus exhibited anti-quorum sensing activity, whereby it interrupted the ability of Chromobacterium violaceum CVO26 to response towards exogenously supplied N-hexanoylhomoserine lactone and the extract reduced bioluminescence in E. coli [pSB401] and E. coli [pSB1075]. In addition to this, methanolic extract of P. amarus significantly inhibited selected quorum sensing-regulated virulence determinants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA01. Increasing concentrations of the methanolic extracts of P. amarus reduced swarming motility, pyocyanin production and P. aeruginosa PA01 lecA::luxexpression. Our data suggest that P. amarus could be useful for attenuating pathogens and hence, more local traditional herbs should be screened for its anti-quorum sensing properties as their active compounds may serve as promising anti-pathogenic drugs.
Conclusions
Based on the results obtained from this study, it is proven that the methanolic extract of P. amarus possesses anti-QS capabilities as well as being able to attenuate QS-regulated virulence determinants of P. aeruginosa POA1. Active compounds in the extract may provide a new insight towards discovering potential anti-pathogenic drugs to combat emerging multidrug resistant pathogens. Future work should direct to the isolation and characterisation of active molecule that is responsible for the anti-QS properties of the methanolic extract of P. amarus.
We gratefully acknowledge the University of Malaya for the High Impact Research Grant (UM-MOHE HIR Nature Microbiome Grant No. H-50001-A000027) awarded to Kok-Gan Chan.
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