Relationship Among Antibiotic Residues And Antibacterial Activity Of The Endemic Spurge Honey (Euphorbia Resinifera O. Berg) From Morocco

Abstract

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria continue to be of major health concern worldwide. In recent years, several reports and scientific articles claim the contamination of honey by antibiotics, detectable concentrations of antibiotic residues in honey are illegal. They, may cause hypersensitivity or resistance to drug therapy in humans, and are perceived by consumers as undesirable. In this sense, the purpose of this work was to examine the antibacterial activity of the Euphorbia resinifera (E. resinifera) honey against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus in vitro using the well-agar diffusion assay followed by dilution range to obtain more precise minimum inhibitory concentration values. The second aim is to evaluate the presence of antibiotics in honey using a screening test: Evidence InvestigatorTM, an immuno-enzymatic method for detection of 27 antibiotic residues followed by a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for confirmation of suspect samples; in order to assess the relationship between the presence of antibiotic residues and the antibacterial activity of honey. In this study, a total of 37 E. resinifera honey samples were analyzed. The results show that all samples of honey inhibited the growth of bacteria at the dilutions at 50% (v/v); the highest inhibition zone (25.98 ± 0.11 mm) was recorded from sample 5 for Staphylococcus aureus and (13.84 ± 1.10 mm) in sample 17 for Escherichia coli and that 50% (v/v) dilutions showed significant antibacterial effect compared to other dilutions (6.25, 12.5, 25% (v/v)). In all samples, there were no antibiotic residues detected except for one showing the detection of Trimethoprim at 6.48 µg kg-1. Our research is one of the first studies that relate the he relationship between the presence of antibiotic residues and the antibacterial activity of Euphorbia resinifera honey and showed that the antibacterial activity of honey might be due to the high osmotic nature, a low pH, its content of phenolic compounds and hydrogen peroxide and also to its content of methylglyoxal.

Comparative Study of the Antioxidant and Enzyme Inhibitory Activities of Two Types of Moroccan Euphorbia Entire Honey and Their Phenolic Extracts

“…Beyond the nutritive aspect of honeys, Euphorbia honey has been target of study due to its economical importance in Morocco, thereby investigation has increased on the melissopalynological and physico-chemical characterization [4][5][6][7][8] and biological properties with potential application on human health [9][10][11]. Anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antimicrobial properties have been attributed to Euphorbia honeys along with the ability to promote wound healing, nevertheless, the majority of works has been focused on the anti-microbial activity [9][10][11], and much less, antioxidant activity [12]. More recently, our team compared the antioxidant activity and some enzyme inhibitory activities of Euphorbia officinarum, E. resinifera plants with those of the respective two monofloral honeys [13].…”

Comparative evaluation of antioxidant activity, total phenolic content, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial potential of Euphorbia-derived functional products

“…With an inhibition diameter of 6.67 ± 0.33, 8.33 ± 0.67 and 9 ± 0 for flowers, stems and roots, respectively for the methanolic extract and an inhibition diameter of 7 ± 0, 10.83 ± 0.17 and 12.17 ± 0.17 mm for flowers, stems and roots respectively for ethyl acetate extract ( Farah et al, 2014 ). In an earlier study conducted by our research team, which investigated the antibacterial activity of the same bacterial strains, it was found that 37 samples of E. resinifera honey from the Tadla Azillal region in Morocco demonstrated activity against both tested strains ( Benjamaa et al, 2020 ). These findings may be attributed to the specificity of bacterial strains.…”

Ethnopharmacological study of medicinal plants used in the treatment of skin diseases in the Western Middle Atlas region (Morocco)

“…This species is exclusive to Morocco. Many researchers have documented the pharmacological activity of Euphorbia resinifera extracts, including antioxidant (Boutoub et al 2020;Benrahou et al 2022), antitumoral (Talbaoui et al 2020;Hmidouche et al 2023), antibacterial (Moujanni et al 2017;Talbaoui et al 2020;Benjamaa et al 2020), and antifungal activities (Ourhzif et al 2022).…”