Bangladesh Journal of Pharmacology Volume: 12; Number 4; Year 2017 Cite this article as: Sasikumar K, Pavithra M, Ghosh AR. Antibacterial activity of phenolic compounds from Ter- minalia arjuna against multidrug resistant E. coli isolated from meat shop. Bangladesh J Pharmacol. 2017; 12: 371 -72. Antibacterial activity of phenolic compounds from Terminalia arjuna against multidrug resistant E. coli isolated from meat shop Sir, Escherichia coli is an emerging foodborne pathogen which is Gram negative rod, mostly motile and some of its serogroups have the public health impact on human. The most severe E. coli serotype associated with hemo- lytic uremic syndrome and hemorrhagic colitis have been the cause of several large outbreaks in various parts of the world during the past three decades (Reilly, 1998). In Germany outbreak, the stool sample analysis revealed that the E coli (O104:H4) strain virulence potentials are the combination of two different patho- gens (Bielaszewska et al., 2011): Shiga-toxin-producing and entero-aggregative E coli. The emergence of antibiotic resistance in the commensal E. coli came from a clinical study from the Peru and Bolivia, with 3174 healthy children where E. coli showed resistance towards the different commonly used antibiotics (Bartoloni et al., 2006). The major risk factors for the acquisition of a multidrug resistant E. coli were found to be resident in a nursing home and in-hospital against the prescription of antimicrobials (Ikram et al., 2015). Therefore, the emergence of antibiotic resistance becomes a challenging area of research for the effective management of the common entero-pathogens. A total of 100 samples were collected from the local meat shops from May 2008 to November 2009. The samples were collected, storage and transport accor- ding to the standard protocol (WHO, 2000). Eighteen samples were identified as E. coli with various sero- groups and also reported to possess multidrug resistant (Pavithra and Ghosh, 2013). Out of which five strains (PV3, PV8, PV31, PV32 and PV34) were selected for this study based on multidrug resistant to the maximum drugs tested. In recent years, a diverse variety of medicinal proper- ties of the natural resources have been investigated worldwide. Thus, identifying new sources of natural products with antimicrobial properties from the medicinal plants are always the area of thrust (Valle et al., 2015). The current study aimed to screen the antimicrobial potential of phenolic compounds from the Terminalia arjuna against the multidrug resistant E. coli, which could not only useful for therapeutic applications but also will expand the antibiotic chemical diversity which is aimed to provide chemical leads for new drug. The commercially available bark powder of T. arjuna A Journal of the Bangladesh Pharmacological Society (BDPS) Bangladesh J Pharmacol 2017; 12: 371-372 Journal homepage: www.banglajol.info Abstracted/indexed in Academic Search Complete, Agroforestry Abstracts, Asia Journals Online, Bangladesh Journals Online, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, CAB Abstracts, Current Abstracts, Directory of Open Access Journals, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Global Health, Google Scholar, HINARI (WHO), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, Open J-gate, Science Citation Index Expanded, SCOPUS and Social Sciences Citation Index ISSN: 1991-0088; DOI: 10.3329/bjp.v12i4.33904 Letter to the Editor This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to copy, distribute and perform the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor Table I Antibiotic susceptibility test against multidrug resistant E. coli strains Drug Zone of Inhibition (mm) PV3 PV8 PV31 PV32 PV34 Ampicillin (10 µg) (S) 22 (S) 23 (R) – (R) – (R) – Ciprofloxacin (5 µg) (R) 25 (R) 22 (R) 12 (R) – (R) 20 Chloramphenicol (30 µg) (S) 23 (S) 23 (R) 19 (R) 11 (S) 24 Lomefloxacin (10 µg) (R) 21 (R) 19 (R) 7 (R) – (R) 16 Norfloxacin (10 µg) (R) 21 (R) 21 (R) 9 (R) – (R) 17 Nalidixic acid (30 µg) (R) 19 (R) 20 (R) – (R) – (R) 19 Nitrofuranton (300 µg) (R) 19 (R) 19 (R) 15 (R) 16 (R) 18 Ofloxcin (5 µg) (R) 21 (R) 23 (R) 8 (R) – (R) 16 Streptomycin (300 µg) (S) 17 (S) 18 (S) 15 (R) 7 (S) 11 Tetracycline (10 µg) (R) 11 (R) 14 (R) – (R) – (R) – R: Resistant, S: Sensitive, –: No Zone. (Sri Vinayaga Herbals, India) was subjected to extrac- tion through the soxhlet’s method by using methanol solvent (Redfern et al., 2014). The dried methanolic crude extract was subsequently subjected to acid-base method for the isolation of phenolic compounds (Agrawal and Paridhavi, 2012). The phytochemical screening and GC-MS analysis showed the presence of phenolic characteristic of the isolated compounds which was identified as 5,7,dihydroxy-3’,4’,5’–trimetho- xyflavone, ethyl-3-phenyl-1-((1-phenylethyl)carbomoyl) cyclobutane carboxylate and 2-(benzylsulfanyl)-4-(4- chlorophenyl)-6-(4-methyphenyl) nicotinitrile and their expected molecular weight was found to be 344.37, 351.04 and 425.00 dalton respectively. The antibiotic susceptibility test for the E. coli against the various commonly used antibiotics and their resis- tance patterns were depicted in Table I. The phenolic compounds from the T. arjuna was screened for the antibacterial potential against the five E. coli multidrug resistant strain using well diffusion method (Rahman et al., 2016) and the results were tabulated in Table II. Interestingly, the synergistic effect of phenolic com- pounds showed significant inhibition against the multidrug resistant strain of E. coli evident from inhibition zones ranging from 12 to 20 mm and this effect was found concentration-dependent. Phenolic compounds have been reported to possess strong anti- oxidant and antimicrobial activities. The potential action of polyphenols acts on the bacterial cell mem- branes in a dose-dependent manner, thus disturbing membrane function and leads to cell leaking, therefore, inhibition of cell growth (Cardona et al., 2013). Considering a great challenge towards the treatment of bacterial infections caused by multidrug resistant E. coli, the isolated phenolic compounds from the T. arjuna could be useful for its therapeutic application besides providing a novel lead compound. The authors thank the management of VIT University, Vellore, India for supporting and performing the scientific exercise for the benefit of society. Kandasamy Sasikumar, M. Pavithra and Asit Ranjan Ghosh School of Biosciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore 632014, Tamil Nadu, India. Corresponding author: email: cidcvit@gmail.com References Agrawal SS, Paridhavi M. Herbal drug technology. 2nd ed. Universities Press (India) Pvt. Ltd, 2012, p 480. Bartoloni A, Pallecchi L, Benedetti M, Fermandez C, Vallejos Y, Guzman E, Villagran AL, Mantella A, Lucchetti C, Bartalesi F, Strohmeyer M, Bechini A, Gamboa H, Rodríguez H, Falkenberg T, Kronvall G, Gotuzzo E, Paradisi F, Rossolini GM. Multidrug resistant commensal Escherichia coli in children, Peru and Bolivia. Emerg Infect Dis. 2006; 12: 907-13. Bielaszewska M, Mellmann A, Zhang W, Köck R, Fruth A, Bauwens A, Peters G, Karch H. Characterisation of the Escherichia coli strain associated with an outbreak of haemo- lytic uraemic syndrome in Germany, 2011: A microbio- logical study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2011; 11: 671-76. 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