As far as I know, brilliant green is a basic dye belonging to aniline group containing dyes. Malachite green is also a basic aniline dye, which is used in endospore staining. In endospore staining, MG penetrates the cells and in turn kills the Gram positive cells upon application of moist heat.
Does BG also follows the same principle? If so, how does it inhibit Gram positive bacteria in culture media plates?
Dear Chandra may be you can found the answer in this article
Ekaterina Gelman, John D. McKinney, and Neeraj Dhar. Malachite Green Interferes with Postantibiotic Recovery of Mycobacteria Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2012 Jul; 56(7): 3610–3614.
This paper concludes that "antimicrobial activity of brilliant green resides in the colored dye ion."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC380161/
Another paper on the subject by the same author:
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/m78-110?journalCode=cjm#.WDTyzPNY9ug
Brilliant Green is closely related to Malachite Green. This review on Malachite Green says that it intercalates into DNA.
http://ijt.sagepub.com/content/15/3/219.short
This could be one reason for its toxicity to Gram positive bacteria, but there could be additional reasons:
'The mechanism of its action [Malachite Green] is through poisoning of respiratory chain proteins resulting in irreversible uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation." (source: http://aac.asm.org/content/53/9/3799.full), referring to
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2761.1985.tb00945.x/abstract
Dear Chandra
Brilliant green is chemically described as ammonium, 4-(p-diethylamino)-alpha-(phenylbenzylidene) (C27H34N2O4S) with λmax of 625 nm and molecular weight of 482g mol-1. Brilliant green C27H34N2O4S dye is used to inhibit gram-positive bacteria and most gram-negative bacilli. The brilliant green content suppresses anaerobic lactose fermenters. So Inhibition of BG is due to blocking of sucrose or lactose fermenting. Please refer to following publication: ACTIVITY OF GENTIAN VIOLET AND BRILLIANT GREEN AGAINST SOME MICROORGANISMS ASSOCIATED WITH SKIN INFECTIONS. (1992) 31, Issue 3 Pages 210–213. Direct link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-4362.1992.tb03939.x/abstract
Hoping to helpful
Marius
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