The combination of taurine and cepharanthine as a composite antibacterial agent

Abstract

The indiscriminate application of diverse broad-spectrum antimicrobials has escalated nosocomial infections into a critical global public health quandary. Currently, traditional antibiotics' efficacy against these infections becomes limited, necessitating a concerted pursuit of more efficacious antimicrobial agents. It is noteworthy that taurine (tau) and cepharanthine (cep) are both biologically active compounds, with taurine constituting a vital nutrient to human health and cepharanthine exhibiting certain antibacterial attributes. However, while cepharanthine displays intrinsic antibacterial features, its monomeric utility is constrained. This study thus investigated the formulation process of merging taurine with cepharanthine, and rigorously assessed the antimicrobial potential of the taurine-cepharanthine complex (denoted as [cep][tau]). The outcomes indicated that this complex, [cep][tau], exhibited antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae, which was on par with the efficacy of cepharanthine on its own. This observation implies that taurine did not antagonize the antibacterial potency of cepharanthine, offering novel avenues for the development of innovative pharmaceuticals targeting hospital-acquired infections.