Inhibitory effect of Brazilin on staphyloxanthin of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and its mechanisms
OBJECTIVE To explore the inhibitory effect of Brazilin on staphyloxanthin(STX)of methicillin-resist-ant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA)and analyze its mechanisms.METHODS Based on transcriptomic data,the change of operon crtOPQMN gene synthesized from encoding STX was observed after Brazilin acted on MRSA.The different concentrations of Brazilin(16,32,64 μg/ml)were cocultured with MRSA;the bacterial colonies were observed by plate transfer,the change of color of bacteria was observed by centrifugation precipitation,and the content of STX was detected by microplate reader.The changes of expression levels of STX encoding genes that mainly affected the colors were detected by means of reverse transcription real-time quantitative PCR(qRT-PCR),the changes of STX metabolic intermediate products were quantitatively detected by spectra,the size of in-hibition circle and colony counts of surviving bacteria were observed by hydrogen peroxide sensitivity assay,and the bacterial colony counts of surviving bacteria were observed by means of whole blood killing assay.RESULTS The expressions of operon genes regulating the production of STX were down-regulated;crtM and crtN genes that mainly affected the color were-6.542479954 and-6.107726632.As the concentration of drug increases,the yellow color of bacterial colonies on plate and precipitates became lighter and white,the content of STX was re-duced,the inhibition rate of the 64 μg/ml of drug on STX was greatest and reached up to 50%.The result of qRT-PCR showed that the expression levels of crtM and crtN declined with the increase of drug concentration.The re-sult of spectra quantitative assay indicated that the content of STX metabolic intermediate products was reduced with the increase of the drug concentration.The result of hydrogen peroxide sensitivity assay showed that with the increase of drug concentration,the diameter of inhibition circle was increased,and the colony counts of surviving bacteria was significantly reduced(P<0.05).The result of whole blood killing assay showed that the colony counts of surviving bacteria were reduced significantly with the increase of drug concentration(P<0.05).CONCLUSION Brazilin can reduce the production of MRSA STX by inhibiting the expressions of crtM and crtN.It can reduce the antioxidant and anti-host immune killing ability of bacteria after the inhibition of STX,which may provide reference for development of novel antitoxic drugs.