Chlorpromazine as permeabilizer and reagent for detection of microbial peroxidase and peroxidaselike activities

Do phenothiazines possess antimicrobial and efflux inhibitory properties?

Antibiotic resistance is a global health concern; the rise of drug-resistant bacterial infections is compromising the medical advances that resulted from the introduction of antibiotics at the beginning of the 20th century. Considering that the presence of mutations within individuals in a bacterial population may allow a subsection to survive and propagate in response to selective pressure, as long as antibiotics are used in the treatment of bacterial infections, development of resistance is an inevitable evolutionary outcome. This, combined with the lack of novel antibiotics being released to the clinical market, means the need to develop alternative strategies to treat these resistant infections is critical. We discuss how the use of antibiotic adjuvants can minimise the appearance and impact of resistance. To this effect, several phenothiazine-derived drugs have been shown to potentiate the activities of antibiotics used to treat infections caused by Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Outside of their role as antipsychotic medications, we review the evidence to suggest that phenothiazines possess inherent antibacterial and efflux inhibitory properties enabling them to potentially combat drug resistance. We also discuss that understanding their mode of action is essential to facilitate the design of new phenothiazine derivatives or novel agents for use as antibiotic adjuvants.

Role of Phenothiazines and Structurally Similar Compounds of Plant Origin in the Fight against Infections by Drug Resistant Bacteria

Phenothiazines have their primary effects on the plasma membranes of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Among the components of the prokaryotic plasma membrane affected are efflux pumps, their energy sources and energy providing enzymes, such as ATPase, and genes that regulate and code for the permeability aspect of a bacterium. The response of multidrug and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis to phenothiazines shows an alternative therapy for the treatment of these dreaded diseases, which are claiming more and more lives every year throughout the world. Many phenothiazines have shown synergistic activity with several antibiotics thereby lowering the doses of antibiotics administered to patients suffering from specific bacterial infections. Trimeprazine is synergistic with trimethoprim. Flupenthixol (Fp) has been found to be synergistic with penicillin and chlorpromazine (CPZ); in addition, some antibiotics are also synergistic. Along with the antibacterial action described in this review, many phenothiazines possess plasmid curing activities, which render the bacterial carrier of the plasmid sensitive to antibiotics. Thus, simultaneous applications of a phenothiazine like TZ would not only act as an additional antibacterial agent but also would help to eliminate drug resistant plasmid from the infectious bacterial cells.

Mueller-Hinton broth undergoes visible oxidative color changes in the presence of peroxidase and hydrogen peroxide

In the presence of peroxidase and hydrogen peroxide, Mueller-Hinton broth undergoes a slow but clearly detectable color change from pale yellow to dark yellow or brown. An investigation of this phenomenon led to the conclusion that it is the result of the oxidation of tyrosine, a major component of the broth. Indeed, tyrosine has long been known to oxidize upon treatment with peroxidase and hydrogen peroxide. The observations reported here, besides being curious for the clinical microbiologist, might deserve attention for the possible implications in the medium color darkening which sometimes happens during microbial growth.

Chemical germination of native and cation-exchanged bacterial spores with trifluoperazine

The calmodulin antagonist trifluoperazine and its analog chlorpromazine, both amphipaths, induced chemical germination of spores of various species, as do many surfactants. Cation load can greatly influence this response. Calmodulin antagonism does not seem to be involved. A new fluorometric assay for dipicolinic acid based on the fluorescence of the dipicolinic acid chelate of Tb3+ was found to be simple and sensitive.

Whole-cell bacterial peroxidase test with isoproterenol as the hydrogen donor

The beta-adrenergic compound isoproterenol was used as oxidizable reagent in a whole-cell assay for the detection of bacterial peroxidase activities. Isoproterenol has been shown to constitute a useful reagent for detecting peroxidase activities in enzymatic tests, utilizing standard purified enzymes, and in the microbiological application proposed. The procedure developed is simple and rapid to perform. In contrast to currently used whole-cell tests for bacterial peroxidases, the assay described here does not need preliminary permeabilization; moreover, the compound utilized does not have related toxicological problems. Therefore, the isoproterenol assay may represent a low-cost safe additional peroxidase test in clinical bacteriology.