Callistemon citrinus is an evergreen shrub originating from Australia and known as Crimson bottle-brush, Red bottle-brush or lemon bottle-brush. The name derives from its original shape and form, and it was given by Robert Brown (21 Dec 1773 – 10 Jun 1858), a Scottish botanist that made important contributions to botany through the use of microscope [4]. It means beautiful stamens.

The genus Callistemon belongs to family Myrtaceae, a genus that has among its 140 genera approximately 3800 species [6]. Image: Herbcyclopedia.

CALLISTEMON CITRINUS

Family: Myrtaceae
Genus: Callistemon
Common name: Crimson bottle-brush, Lemon bottle-brush, Red bottle-brush.

QUORUM SENSING EXPLAINED

Quorum sensing, also known as bacterial intracellular communication, is the mechanism by which cells are able to control basic cellular activities and coordinate their actions [1], and the way bacteria is able to infect our bodies in a coordinated and structured way. Quorum sensing is, in other words, the mechanism used by bacteria to synchronize their behaviour, including the virulence of their attacks, antibiotic resistance, biofilm formation (communities of microorganisms attached to a surface [10])...etc, and all this in order to react appropriately to external signal and manage their primary goal, a bacterial infection. Breaking bacterial intracellular communication is a way to stop bacterial infections on a natural way that scientists and pharmaceutical companies have investigated since recent years to fight multi-drug resistance of certain bacterias.

Where traditional antibiotics failed to treat infections caused by bacterial biofilms and multi-resistant bacteria as gram-negative bacteria, quorum sensing inhibitors managed to stop infection, something specially interesting in gram-negative bacteria, shielded in a protective film and immune to most known antibiotics and for which quorum sensing seems to be the last line of defense.