Activities of different types of Thai honey on pathogenic bacteria causing skin diseases, tyrosinase enzyme and generating free radicals

BACKGROUND: Honey is a natural product obtained from the nectar that is collected from flowers by bees. It has several properties, including those of being food and supplementary diet, and it can be used in cosmetic products. Honey imparts pharmaceutical properties since it has antibacterial and antioxidant activities. The antibacterial and antioxidant activities of Thai honey were investigated in this study. RESULTS: The honey from longan flower (source No. 1) gave the highest activity on MRSA when compared to the other types of honey, with a minimum inhibitory concentration of 12.5% (v/v) and minimum bactericidal concentration of 25% (v/v). Moreover, it was found that MRSA isolate 49 and S. aureus were completely inhibited by the 50% (v/v) longan honey (source No. 1) at 8 and 20 hours of treatment, respectively. Furthermore, it was observed that the honey from coffee pollen (source No. 4) showed the highest phenolic and flavonoid compounds by 734.76 mg gallic/kg of honey and 178.31 mg quercetin/kg of honey, respectively. The antioxidant activity of the honey obtained from coffee pollen was also found to be the highest, when investigated using FRAP and DPPH assay, with 1781.77 mg FeSO4•7H2O/kg of honey and 86.20 mg gallic/kg of honey, respectively. Additionally, inhibition of tyrosinase enzyme was found that honey from coffee flower showed highest inhibition by 63.46%. CONCLUSIONS: Honey demonstrates tremendous potential as a useful source that provides anti-free radicals, anti-tyrosinase and anti-bacterial activity against pathogenic bacteria causing skin diseases.

Comparison of in-house HIV-1 genotypic drug resistant test with commercial HIV-1 genotypic test kit.

Background: The use of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) has become a standard of care in the treatment of HIV infection. However, antiretroviral drug resistance occurs in a substantial number of patients. In resourcelimited settings, genotypic resistance assay using a commercial kit is costly. Objective: Focus on the validation of an in-house HIV-1 specific genotypic drug resistance assay in Thai patients failing cART. Materials and methods: Results of HIV-1 genotypic drug resistance assay was evaluated by comparing an inhouse method to a commercial test. The TRUGENE HIV-1 genotyping kit was used in 79 plasma specimens (49 from HIV patients failing cART therapy and 30 from proficiency testing panels). Results: The results from the in-house assay were comparable to those obtained from the TRUGENE HIV-1 genotyping kit with >99.0% codon-to-codon agreement. The lower limit of detection by the in-house assay was approximately 100 copies/mL of HIV-1 RNA. In addition, this in-house assay would allow testing of samples from patients infected with HIV-1 subtype other than B. Conclusion: The in-house HIV-1 genotypic drug resistance assay may be used as an alternative to commercial kits, particularly in resource limited settings.