Antimicrobial Effect of Syzygium cumini Extract Against Methicillin Non-Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus

Background: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a leading cause of infections in Community- Associated (CA) as well as Hospital-Associated (HA) settings. Identification of new antibacterial agents from natural sources takes the forefront in research. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to identify the resistance pattern of S. aureus in the clinical samples causing disease in Dhaka city, molecular typing of the methicillin non-susceptible S. aureus isolates and identifying new herbal components with anti-microbial effect against S. aureus. Methods: We screened total of 78 clinical specimen of various nature (pus, urine, tracheal aspirate, conjunctiva and wound swab) with confirm S. aureus infection between March 2018 to October 2018. The specimen were cultured on mannitol salt agar to isolate S. aurues, which were later tested for antibiotic resistance according to disc diffusion method. The MRSA isolates were confirmed with PCR and typed for SCCmec element to know the distribution of hospital-associated and community-associated strains. Finally, the MRSA isolates were cultured in the presence of leaf extract and fruit extract of Syzygium cumini for observing the antibacterial potential. Result: A total of 12 isolates of S. aureus were found to be non-susceptible to methicillin, 34%, 25%, 17% out of these were from pus, blood and urine respectively and 8% isolates were from wound swab, conjunctiva and tracheal aspirates each. Out of methicillin non-susceptible isolates, 25% and 16% were HA-MRSA and CAMRSA respectively, as seen from PCR analysis of the SCCmec gene cassette of the S. aureus genome. The rest of the 59% of the isolates were untypable. Overall, higher concentration of leaf and fruit extract reduced the optical density of MRSA culture and reduced bacterial growth in drop plate significantly. Conclusion: Dhaka population has S. aureus with varying sensitivity against methicillin, which needs further characterization by molecular epidemiology methods. Bangladesh Med Res Counc Bull 2021; 47(1): 82-89