Abstract
8-Methoxypsoralen (8-MOP), a naturally occurring furocoumarin found in many plant species, has been reported to have antimycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain H37Rv (ATCC 27294). In the present study, we further test the in vitro synergistic activity of 8-MOP and ethambutol (EMB), isoniazid (INH), or rifampin (RMP) against M. tuberculosis. This study showed that 8-MOP has antimycobacterial activity against two drug-sensitive and six drug-resistant clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis, with the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 100–200 and 200–400 μg/mL, respectively. A synergistic antimycobacterial effect between 8-MOP and EMB, INH, or RMP against six drug-resistant strains was observed, with the fractional inhibitory concentration indices (FICIs) of 0.093–0.156, 0.138–0.285 and 0.093–0.262, respectively. The combination of 8-MOP/EMB, 8-MOP/INH, and 8-MOP/RMP displayed either synergistic activity or had no interaction when tested against the two clinical drug-sensitive strains and the standard strain. No antagonism was observed for any drug combination against any of the strains tested. To our knowledge, this is first report that 8-MOP has synergistic activity with first-line antimycobacterial agents.
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Acknowledgment
This work was supported by funding from The National Basic Research Program (973 program) (2006CB504402) and Important National Science and Technology Specific Projects (2008ZX10301).
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Ge, F., Zeng, F., Guo, N. et al. In vitro synergistic activity between 8-methoxypsoralen and ethambutol, isoniazid, and rifampin when used in combination against Mycobacterium tuberculosis . World J Microbiol Biotechnol 26, 623–628 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-009-0214-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-009-0214-0