The identification of inhibine, the antibacterial factor in honey, as hydrogen peroxide and its origin in a honey glucose-oxidase system

Characterization of selected Gram-negative non-fermenting bacteria isolated from honey bees (Apis mellifera carnica)

“…To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report describing the isolation of chryseobacteria from honey. This is remarkable because honey harbors very low numbers of viable bacteria (Tysset et al 1980;Snowdon and Cliver 1996;Gilliam 1997;Iurlina and Fritz 2005;López and Alippi 2007;Loncaric et al 2009;Kačániová et al 2009) due to its antimicrobial properties (White et al 1963;Molan 1992aMolan , b, 2001Taormina et al 2001;Lusby et al 2005;Gomes et al 2010;Kwakman et al 2010). Exceptions are sporeforming bacteria like P. larvae, causative agent of American Foulbrood (Genersch 2010); C. botulinum, facultative pathogen for humans (Brook 2007); and other spore-forming bacteria primarily Bacillus and relatives (Iurlina and Fritz 2005), which is not inactivated by the inhibitory properties of honey.…”

Antifungal activity of four honeys of different types from Algeria against pathogenic yeast: Candida albicans and Rhodotorula sp.

“…as fungal strains. Results: The range of the diameter of zone of inhibition of various concentrations of tested honeys was (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23) mm) for Rhodotorula sp., while C. albicans showed clearly resistance towards all concentrations used. The MICs of tested honey concentrations against C. albicans and Rhodotorula sp.…”

“…All samples were then incubated for 30 min at 37 曟 in a shaking water bath that allowed aeration of the solutions. Incubation was carried out in the dark because both hydrogen peroxide and glucose oxidase are light sensitive [27] .…”

“…Recently, the potential antifungal effect of honey has attracted serious attention within the scientific community [13][14][15][16] . Most types of honey generate hydrogen peroxide when diluted because of the activation of the enzyme glucose oxidase, which oxidizes glucose to gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide [17,18] . Hydrogen peroxide is the major contributor to the antimicrobial activity of honey, and the different concentrations of this compound in different honeys result in their varying antimicrobial effects [19][20][21][22] .…”

Diet effects on honeybee immunocompetence

“…Mainly expressed in the HPGs (Ohashi et al 1999), GOX catalyses the oxidation of b-D-glucose to gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, the latter having antiseptic properties. The antiseptic products are secreted into larval food and honey, which contributes to colony-food sterilization (White et al 1963), and hence, to the prevention of disease contamination at the group level.…”