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A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity
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Harrison, Freya, Roberts, Aled E. L., Gabrilska, Rebecca, Rumbaugh, Kendra P., Lee, Christina and Diggle, Stephen P. (2015) A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity. mBio, 6 (4). e01129-15. doi:10.1128/mBio.01129-15 ISSN 2150-7511.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01129-15
Abstract
Plant-derived compounds and other natural substances are a rich potential source of compounds that kill or attenuate pathogens that are resistant to current antibiotics. Medieval societies used a range of these natural substances to treat conditions clearly recognizable to the modern eye as microbial infections, and there has been much debate over the likely efficacy of these treatments. Our interdisciplinary team, comprising researchers from both sciences and humanities, identified and reconstructed a potential remedy for Staphylococcus aureus infection from a 10th century Anglo-Saxon leechbook. The remedy repeatedly killed established S. aureus biofilms in an in vitro model of soft tissue infection and killed methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in a mouse chronic wound model. While the remedy contained several ingredients that are individually known to have some antibacterial activity, full efficacy required the combined action of several ingredients, highlighting the scholarship of premodern doctors and the potential of ancient texts as a source of new antimicrobial agents.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Life Sciences (2010- ) | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | mBio | ||||||||
Publisher: | American Society for Microbiology | ||||||||
ISSN: | 2150-7511 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 11 August 2015 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 6 | ||||||||
Number: | 4 | ||||||||
Page Range: | e01129-15 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1128/mBio.01129-15 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) |
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