Antibiotic-potentiation Activities of Cameroonian Medicinal Plants against Multidrug-resistant Phenotype Helicobacter pylori Clinical Isolates

Background: Helicobacter pylori are the primary cause of peptic ulcer disease and an etiologic agent in the development of gastric cancer. The emergence of multi-drug resistant phenotypes is a major public health problem today in the treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection. The present study was designed to evaluate the anti-Helicobacter activities of six Cameroonian medicinal plants on ten Helicobacter pylori clinical isolate from dyspeptic patients and their ability to potentiate the effect of common antibiotics against multidrug-resistance phenotypes Helicobacter pylori.

Methodology: Broth microdilution assay was used for the antimicrobial evaluation of plant-extracts alone or in combination with antibiotics, while Time-kill assay was used to study the bactericidal activity.

Results: Plant-extracts showed different anti-Helicobacter activity with the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values varying from 64 to >1024 µg/ml. The methanol extract of E. cocaine leaves showed the best anti-Helicobacter activity with MIC value of 64 µg/ml against 60% of the tested isolate. Moreover, E. cocaine extract at a concentration equal to 8MIC, produced from 24 to 72 h a viability decrease of 2 logs lower than those for the control against the tested clinical isolates. Synergistic concentration dependent effects were observed when combining this plant extract with erythromycin, or amoxicillin against Helicobacter pylori multi-drug resistant phenotypes with minimum fold inhibition of 16 and eight respectively for erythromycin and amoxicillin.

Conclusion: The overall results provide information for the possible use of E. cocaine extract in the control of Helicobacter pylori infections involving multi-drug resistant phenotypes.