Screening and Isolation of Antibiotics Resistance Inhibitors from Herb Materials. V.- Resistance Inhibition by Acorenone from Acorus gramineus Solander

Acorenone, a diterpene isolated from Acorus gramineus, showed strong resistance inhibitory activity against multi-drug resistant microorganisms such as Staphylococcus aureus SA2, which has resistance to 10 usual antibiotics including chloramphenicol (Cm). At the level of $5\;{\mu}g/ml$ when combined with $50\;{\mu}g/ml$ of Cm. Bacterial resistance to Cm is due to the presence in resistant bacteria of an enzyme, chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT), which catalyses the acetyl-CoA dependent acetylation of the antibiotic at C-3 hydroxyl group. To elucidate the mechanism of resistant inhibitory effect, the acorenone which had the strongest resistant inhibitory activity, was investigated on the CAT assay. As the result, the combination of Cm and acorenone showed the strongest inhibitory activity on CAT as noncompetitive and dose dependent manner.