Screening of natural compounds identifies ferutinin as an antibacterial and anti-biofilm compound

Abstract

Antibacterial screenings are most commonly targeted at planktonic bacteria but less effort is dedicated to the exploration of agents acting on biofilms. Here, a natural compounds library was screened against Staphylococcus aureus using a 384-well plate platform to identify compounds preventing biofilm formation. Five structurally diverse hits were selected for follow-up studies: honokiol, tschimganidin, ferutinin, oridonin and deoxyshikonin. The compounds were evaluated against different bacterial species for their capacity to prevent and disrupt biofilms. The development of resistance and cytotoxicity were also investigated. Ferutinin displayed the best antibacterial activity, with a minimum inhibitory, bactericidal and biofilm preventive concentration of 25 µM against S. aureus. It efficiently disrupted pre-formed biofilms (over 5-log reduction of viable cells) and reduced biofilm formation on a catheter in the presence of neutrophils. This work provides new information on the antibacterial activity of five natural compounds and identified ferutinin as a promising candidate against S. aureus biofilms.

Keywords:

• Antibacterial screening
• anti-biofilm
• ferutinin
• natural products
• Staphylococcus aureus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement number 722467; the Finnish Pharmaceutical Society provided a personal grant to S.G-G.