ABSTRACT
Prodigiosin is a secondary metabolite, with red pigmentation, produced by Serratia marcescens. Red pigment is a natural alkaloid whose chemical structure has three pyrrole rings. Prodigiosin has been described for several biological activities, including antitumor, inducing apotosis in T and B lymphocytes. This work aimed to evaluate the cytotoxic activity of prodigiosin in NCHI-292, HEp-2, MCF-7 and HL-60 tumor cell lines. The red pigment was isolated from Serratia marcescens UFPEDA 398 biomass whose fractions were previously separated by column chromatography, purified, identified and further characterized by GC-MS and compared with the computerized library of m/z values. The pigment corresponded to prodigiosin with maximum absorption at 534 nm, molecular weight 323 and structural formula C20H25N3O. During the prodigiosin purification process a purple absorbance fraction at 272.65 nm was also observed. Significant cytotoxic effects of prodigiosin were evidenced for NCHI-292, Hep-2, MCF-7 and HL-60 tumor cell lines. The isolated purple fraction had no cytotoxic effect (IC50 11.3 µg/mL) when compared to prodigiosin (IC50 3.4 µg/mL) for the tumor cell lines studied. The MCF-7 strain was slightly more pigment resistant (IC50 5.1 µg/mL). Therefore, further studies will be needed to elucidate the antitumor mechanisms of prodigiosin action against tumor strains from flow cytometry tests. However, although these data are preliminary, it was evidenced that prodigiosin showed cytotoxic activity in tumor cell lines suggesting promising antitumor properties. In this sense, future studies on the cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of prodigiosin produced by S. marcecsens UFPEDA 398 are suggested.
ABSTRACT
Prodigiosin is an alkaloid and natural red pigment produced by Serratia marcescens. Prodigiosin has antimicrobial, antimalarial and antitumor properties and induces apoptosis in T and B lymphocytes. These properties have piqued the interest of researchers in the fields of medicine, pharmaceutics and different industries. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of prodigiosin against pathogenic micro-organisms. The red pigments produced by S. marcescens exhibited absorption at 534 nm, Rf of 0.59 and molecular weight of 323 m/z. Antimicrobial activity was tested against oxacillin-resistant Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus pyogenes, Acinetobacter sp. and oxacillin-resistant S. aureus. The standard antibiotics employed were ampicillin, chloramphenicol, gentamicin and oxacillin. The disc-diffusion tests demonstrated significant inhibition zones for S. aureus (35 ± 0.6), E. faecalis (22 ± 1.0) and S. pyogenes (14 ± 0.6). However, prodigiosin showed resistance to E. coli, P. aeruginosa and acinetobacter, where no significant formation of inhibitory halos were observed. We determined the inhibitory minimum concentrations and bactericidal for 20 strains of oxacillin-resistant S. aureus (ORSA). The pattern was the antibiotic oxacillin. The minimum inhibitory concentrations observed ranged from 1, 2 and 4.0 µg/mL, respectively, while the minimum bactericidal concentrations ranged from 2, 4, 8 and 16 µg/mL. The S. marcescens prodigiosin produced by showed bactericidal and bacteriostatic effect showing promising antimicrobial activity and suggesting future studies regarding its applicability in antibiotics therapies directed ORSA.
