, 2000). To date, a number of SEs have been identified, including SEA-E, SEG, SEH, SEI, SEJ, SEK, SEL, SEM, SEN, and SEO (Omoe et al., 2002). Although their exact mechanisms of action have not been fully elucidated, these enterotoxins are believed to stimulate an enteric-vagus nerve reflex, triggering the vomiting centres of the brain (Sears & Kaper, 1996). Licochalcone A is one of the many flavonoids present in Chinese liquorice root, which has been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine. It has been demonstrated that licochalcone A possesses a variety of biological activities, including antimicrobial (Fukai et al., 2002), selleck chemicals llc anti-inflammatory (Kwon et
al., 2008), antiprotozoal (Chen et al., 2001), antitumour (Shibata, 2000), and antioxidative (Haraguchi et al., 1998) activities. Strikingly, previous studies have shown that licochalcone A was potent against methicillin-sensitive S. aureus Selleck ABT 199 (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ranging from 3 to 16 μg mL−1 depending on the strain (Hatano et al., 2000; Fukai et al., 2002). These results indicate that licochalcone A could be a potentially effective antimicrobial against S. aureus and could be used to treat patients infected with drug-resistant bacteria. Furthermore, in our previous study, we reported that subinhibitory concentrations of licochalcone A significantly
decreased α-toxin production in both MSSA and MRSA isolates (Qiu et al., 2009). However, there were no data on enterotoxin secretion by S. aureus exposed to licochalcone A obtained in this study. The present study click here was aimed to investigate the influence of subinhibitory concentrations of licochalcone A on
the production of enterotoxins A and B by S. aureus. The clinical isolate MRSA 2985 was isolated at the First Hospital of Jilin University from a blood sample from an infected patient. The MSSA ATCC 29213 isolate was obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC). Licochalcone A was purchased from the National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products (Beijing, China), and stock solutions at various concentrations were prepared in dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO). The MIC in Mueller–Hinton broth (BD Biosciences Inc., Sparks, MD) was evaluated in triplicate using a broth microdilution method as recommended by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (2005). The licochalcone A MIC values for S. aureus strain ATCC 29213 and MRSA strain 2985 were 4 μg mL−1. Furthermore, the MICs of the strains vs. licochalcone A in Luria-Bertani (LB) broth (BD Biosciences Inc.) were also 4 μg mL−1. Staphylococcus aureus strain ATCC 29213 was grown to an OD600 nm value of 0.3 in LB, and 100-mL volumes of the culture were placed into five 250-mL Erlenmeyer flasks.