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Browsing by Subject "antimikrobiseulonta"

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  • Tuhkalainen, Juho (2012)
    Natural products have been used as medicines for thousands of years. Of the drugs on the market today a significant proportion are natural products or natural product derivatives. Natural products can be enhanced by the means of chemical modification. Modification of a natural product may result in lesser toxicity, greater efficacy or better chemical stability. Different ways to modify a natural product are represented in the literature review using approved drugs as examples. Biological screening is an important part of a modern drug discovery process. Libraries containing synthetic molecules or natural products can be screened. The literature review discusses different types of natural product libraries and how they differ from synthetic libraries. Natural product libraries are smaller and more laborious to screen compared with synthetic libraries. Natural product libraries contain more hits in proportion of total compounds because natural products have activity in biological systems more often than synthetic molecules. A remarkable part of antibiotics and anti-cancer agents are derived from nature. A need for especially new antibiotics will be notable in the future due to resistant microbial strains and the need can be met with natural product research. The object of the experimental part was to evaluate the bioactivity of eleven synthetic abietic acid derivatives. Antimicrobial activity of the compounds was determined againts six human pathogens which were S.aureus, E.coli, P.aeruginosa, E. aerogenes, E. faecalis and Candida albicans. Cytotoxicity testing on the compounds was performed using mammalian cell lines CaCo-2 and Huh-7. Compounds were tested for albumin binding using bovine serum albumin. The effect of bovine serum albumin on the antimicrobial effect of compounds was studied. Spectrophotometric studies on compound-albumin complexes were carried out using fluorescence and UV absorbance measurement techniques. A primary antimicrobial screening was performed with all the compounds. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were determined for compounds that showed antimicrobial activity in the primary screening. Cytotoxicity testing was carried out with all the compounds. Albumin binding was studied only on compounds that showed activity in the antimicrobial screening. Some of the compounds were noticed to have antimicrobial activity against the studied gram-positive bacteria and yeast Candida albicans. Antimicrobially active compounds were noticed to bind to albumin and have cytotoxic effects.
  • Kujala, Janni (2010)
    Staphylococcus aureus is a common commensal and significant opportunistic pathogen. It causes a wide range of infections from superficial skin infections to serious invasive infections. Its pathogenicity is affected by many factors, such as different surface proteins as well as the excretion of toxins and extracellular enzymes. It has many ways to defend a host defense system, such as the formation of capsule and small-colony variants as well as intracellular hiding. Treatment of infections is hindered due to its ability to form resistance to almost every antimicrobial agent used. So far the development of a working and effective vaccine has not been successful. The discovery of new antibacterial agents seems to be still the only efficient way to fight against resistant bacterial strains. However, the development of new antibacterial agents has proved to be difficult. Developing new screening methods is important in order for new drugs to reach the market more effectively and to ensure that new derivatives are more effective and safer. The experimental part of this study aimed at establishing a co-culture of host cells and a pathogen, and to investigate active compounds from primary screen with the established method (Kleymann and Werling 2004). Host cells in the co-culture was HL (Human Lung) cell line and the pathogen was S. aureus (ATCC 25923). Experimental work began by determining bacterial colony-forming units (CFU) and its correlation with absorbance. Based on CFU-determinations the bacterial concentration in the culture media was calculated. Next, the method was optimized and validated. In optimization, statistical parameters S/B-, S/N-values, and Z'-factor were used. Method was optimized regarding cell and bacterial concentrations and incubation time. The method was validated using known antimicrobials. Screening of compounds to be studied was carried out in two stages. All the compounds were first screened in a primary screen. The primary screening method was a standard antibacterial measurement based on turbidometry. Those compounds that were active in the primary screen were investigated in a secondary screen with a co-culture method, but none of the studied compounds showed antimicrobial activity against S. aureus. Therefore we studied the impact of medium that was used in the co-culture method to the activity of the compounds. It was found that the medium had a significant effect on the antibacterial activity of the compounds, the activity was weakened in the presence of the medium. In conclusion, w the established co-culture method is a powerful way to obtain simultaneously information on antibacterial activity as well as cytotoxicity, and it is well suited for further testing of promising compounds.