Efficient Inactivation of Multi-Antibiotics Resistant Nosocomial Enterococci by Purified Hiracin Bacteriocin.
OBJECTIVE
Because of the emergence of multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria, a number of infectious diseases have become a major concern to treat in health care services worldwide. This situation is worsened by the fact that very limited progress has been made in developing new and potent antibiotics in recent years. In this context antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent new potential therapeutic compounds with bactericidal or bacteriostatic activity against closely related bacterial strains.


METHODS
In this study, a collection of enterococci (n=170) from clinical sources were investigated for their potential to inhibit multiresistant nosocomial enterococci from Iranian hospitals.


RESULTS
Four isolates produced antimicrobial peptides that inhibited all the antibiotic resistant enterococci. This included three Enterococcus faecium isolates producing combinations of enterocin A, B and L50 AB. The most potent antagonism was produced by E. faecalis HO91. Purification and subsequent characterization by MALDI-TOF MS, Edman degradation and DNA-sequencing revealed that the antimicrobial compound was Hiracin. The purified Hiracin was evaluated for antibacterial activity against 12 multiresistant enterococcal isolates from clinical samples. The results demonstrated that Hiracin is highly effective towards enterococci which were resistant even to antibiotics from four distinct classes.


CONCLUSIONS
The present research addresses Hiracin as a promising alternative to conventional antibiotics in treatment of multiresistant enterococcal infections.
Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Research Center, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran.
Maryam
M
Hassan
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Laboratory of Microbial Gene Technology, N1432 Aas, Norway.
Dag Anders
DA
Brede
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Laboratory of Microbial Gene Technology, N1432 Aas, Norway.
Dzung B
DB
Diep
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Laboratory of Microbial Gene Technology, N1432 Aas, Norway.
Ingolf F
IF
Nes
Faculty of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Farzaneh
F
Lotfipour
Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran.
Zoya
Z
Hojabri
Enterococci; Hiracin; Multi-antibiotic resistant; Purification