Synergistic interaction between propolis extract, essential oils, and antibiotics against Staphylococcus epidermidis and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract

The development of multi-drug-resistant bacteria pushed the scientific community to look for new alternatives to solve the problem. Propolis is a beehive substance and one of the richest natural products in bioactive compounds with antibacterial activity. This study was aimed to investigate the possible synergistic interaction between propolis and antibacterial drugs, such as essential oils (EOs) and antibiotics, in order to find increased activity with decreased concentrations. Two ethanol extracts of propolis were used for the test, which were collected from the north of Morocco. The chemical composition was determined by UHPLC-MS. The synergistic effect of propolis extracts with EOs and antibiotics was tested using the checkerboard technique. The chemical analysis showed the presence of more that 100 compounds in propolis extracts, belonging mainly to flavonoids. The combination of propolis with the other antibacterial drugs showed different types of interactions with FIC index values varied from 0.18 to 1, but no antagonist effect was noticed. With FICI<0.5, the synergistic effect was obtained with essential oils as well as with antibiotics. These results indicate that propolis can be a promising source of molecules with medical interest to treat bacterial infection and/or to increase the action of antibiotics.

Keywords

• Propolis
• Chemical composition
• Essential oils
• Antibiotics
• Checkboard technique

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