I want to research on antibacterial activity of nisin on some gram positive bacteria. Is it possible to substitute conventional antibiotics like vancomycin by antimicrobial peptides such as bacteriocins?
Nisin is a bacteriocin which has bactericide properties. it is usually produced by probiotics.
Nisin is FDA approved and generally regarded as a safe peptide with recognized potential for clinical use. Over the past two decades the application of nisin has been extended to biomedical fields. Several studies around the world have reported that nisin can prevent the growth of drug-resistant bacterial strains, such as MRSA, St. pneumoniae, Enterococci and C. difficile. Nisin has now been shown to have antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative disease-associated pathogens.
Nicin is a broad-spectrum bacteriocin effective against many Gram-positive organisms, including lactic acid bacteria , Listeria monocytogenes ,Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum, etc.
Dr. Yvonne Kapila, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and his group studied the effect of nisin on cancerous tumors and as an antimicrobial to fight diseases in the mouth. They found that feeding rats a "nisin milkshake" killed 70-80 percent of head and neck tumor cells after nine weeks and extended survival.Nisin also fights deadly bacteria such as antibiotic-resistant MRSA.
Nisin is known to have bactericidal activity against gram Positive pathogens since very long. Additionally in conjunction with conventional antibiotics, it has shown remarkable activity against Gram negative Salmonella as demonstrated by our group (http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076844.g001 and doi: 10.1093/jac/dku049).
Article Value Addition in the Efficacy of Conventional Antibiotics b...
Article Nisin/β-Lactam adjunct therapy against Salmonella enterica s...
Article Evaluation of nisin–β-lactam antibiotics against clinical st...
Nisin has antibactericidal properties and FDA approved it as GRAS ( Generally recognize as Safe). You can try it on Gram Positive Bacteria.
All the best for your research.
Dear Dr. Singh
Thanks for sharing us your useful research articles. The result show the antibacterial activity of nisin against gram negative bacteria and due to less complicated wall structure of gram positive bacteria, Then we can use it against these pathogenic species.
Hi Shahab: although in theory nisin can be effective against Gram-positives and Gram-negatives, I would not expect much effectivity against recalcitrant Gram-negative pathogens. When the latter are involved, a more potent and specific antimicrobial would probably be more effective.
Best regards
Our team have previously tested effects of nisin on the growth of foodborne S. aureus strains. It has inhibitory effects but after sometime the growth again start so that resistance to nisin can develop.
Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 75, No. 9, 2012, Pages 1627–1633
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