Objective: To investigate the antibacterial activity and mechanism of luteolin on Staphylococcus aureus.
Methods: The antibacterial activity and mechanism experiments were carried out by using 2, 3, 5-triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC), determining membrane penetrability, the change of SDS-PAGE protein spectra and 4 6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining assay.
Results: Luteolin could affect the membrane permeability of Staphylococcus aureus, but not destroy the membrane integrity directly. After treated with luteolin for 16 hours, the total content of proteins decreased to 64.54%, the quantity of both DNA and RNA reduced to 48.44% and 39.35% respectively. The activity of DNA topoisomerase I and II was inhibited completely by 1.6 mg/mL luteolin.
Conclusion: Luteolin showed obvious antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus. The antibacterial mechanism of luteolin is that it could inhibit the activity of DNA topoisomerase I and II, which resulted in some decrease in the nucleic acid and protein synthesis.