Paeoniae Radix aqueous extract can be used as an antibacterial agent to attenuate S. aureus virulence by targeting α-toxin. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Paeoniflorin Derivative in Paeoniae Radix Aqueous Extract Suppresses Alpha-Toxin of.
Front Microbiol. 2021 ;12:649390. Epub 2021 Mar 20. PMID: 33821158
Xiaoye Liu
The emergence and dissemination of bacterial infections is paralyzing our public health systems worldwide. Worse still, there are no effective antibiotics against bacterial toxins, which facilitate the infection. Natural herbs that target bacterial toxins may be a better choice for therapy of infectious diseases. However, most natural drugs present unknown compositions and unclear mechanisms. Here we demonstrated that the Chinese herb Paeoniae Radix aqueous extract (PRAE) could suppress alpha-toxin (α-toxin) of. We observed that the paeoniflorin derivative (PRAE-a) derivative in PRAE significantly abolished the hemolytic activity ofα-toxin. The analyses of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometer (MS), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) showed that PRAE-a was a glycoside compound with a paeoniflorin nucleus. We further found that PRAE-a disrupted the pore-forming ability of α-toxin by prevention of the dimer to heptamer. Therefore, PRAE-a proved to be an effective therapy forlung infections in mice by inhibitingα-toxin. Collectively, these results highlighted that PRAE-a can be used as an antibacterial agent to attenuatevirulence by targetingα-toxin.