Chilean avocado fruit combats multi-resistant bacterial strains

Antibiotic resistance is the immunity that certain microorganisms develop after being exposed to some antibiotics. Most medical centers and general practitioners are reluctant to prescribe antibiotics for common bacterial infections and long term use and certainly the abuse of those antibiotics can lead to mutations of the bacterias treated and the subsequent development of the so-called "multi-resistan bacterial strains", or strains of bacterias that are resistant to most types of antibiotics and for which the last line of defense remains the use of combined therapies and new medications, including newly develop antibiotics against these multi-resistant bacterial strains.

PERSEA AMERICANA

Family: Lauraceae
Genus: Persea
Common name: Avocado

AVOCADO ACTIVE CONSTITUENTS WITH ANTIBIOTIC PROPERTIES

In the search for active molecules and phytochemicals that may help scientist and researchers to develop new multi-resistant bacterial antibiotics, PhD Jes Gitz Holler, a researcher from the University of Copenhagen, discovered a phytochemical, a naturally occurring compound found in a type of Chilean avocado plant, that may be the solution for multi-resistant bacterial strains resistance.

HOW DOES THIS NEW COMPOUND WORK?

This new compound, as Jes Gitz explains, is able to inhibit the pumping action used by multi-resistant bacterial strains to pump out the antibiotics as soon as they manage to penetrate their bacterial membrane, rendering ineffective the antibiotic.

PERSEA AMERICANA

In spite it wasn't mentioned in the press release the exact type of avocado from which this new phytochemical compound has been extracted, Jes Gitz Holler mentioned that the plant comes from the Persea family in Chili, from which the Mapuche, a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile [2], used the leaves to heal their wounds.

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE AMONG THE MAPUCHE

For the Mapuche the use of traditional herbal remedies and plants is not new. To treat wounds and inflammation the Mapuche used plants as Blechnum chilense, Luma apiculata, Amomyrtus luma and Cestrum parqui, all of them with proven to have direct blood platelet inhibition properties [3].

The researches are now busy trying to improve the properties exerted by the active constituent found in avocado. Let's hope this new compound can be the origin of new developments on the field of multi-resistant bacterial strains antibiotics.

Disclaimer

REFERENCES

[1] Rainforest plant combats multi-resistant bacterial strains University of Copenhagen Press Release

[2] Wikipedia Mapuche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche)

[3] Mapuche herbal medicine inhibits blood platelet aggregation. Falkenberg SS, Tarnow I, Guzman A, Mølgaard P, Simonsen HT. Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, VKR Research Centre Pro-Active Plants, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, 1871 Copenhagen, Denmark.

[4] In vitro evaluation of genotoxicity of avocado (Persea americana) fruit and leaf extracts in human peripheral lymphocytes. Kulkarni P, Paul R, Ganesh N. Department of Research, Jawaharlal Nehru Cancer Hospital & Research Centre, Bhopal, India.

[5] Plant names: Porcher Michel H. et al. 1995 - 2020, Sorting Bombax Names. Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database - A Work in Progress.  School of Agriculture and Food Systems. Faculty of Land & Food Resources. The University of Melbourne.  Australia. 
< http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Persea.html >