Papers of the Week

Natural products are used as alternative drugs in traditional medicine to treat infection and inflammation and relieve pain. Heartwood of Craib has been investigated as an ingredient in Thai traditional medicine for anti-HIV protease, but there is no report on its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activities. The objectives of this study were to investigate the anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activities, time-kill profile, and main active constituents of an ethanolic extract of heartwood. The study followed the generally accepted experimental design. All tests were investigated in triplicate. The heartwood of was extracted by maceration with 95% EtOH. The antibacterial activity of the extract and its chemical constituents were determined by their MIC values using resazurin as an indicator. Time-kill profile was determined at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 24 hrs and expressed as log CFU/mL. The anti-inflammatory activity of the extract and its chemical components was investigated by their inhibiting effect on IL-6 and TNF- production by ELISA. The ethanolic extract was analyzed for its chemical constituents by HPLC technique. The ethanolic extract showed both dose- and time-dependent bactericidal effects against , methicillin-resistance , , , , Typhi, Typhimurium, , and with MIC values of 312.5, 312.5, 312.5, 1,250, 2,500, 625, 625, 2,500, and 625 g/mL, respectively. It showed an inhibiting effect on IL-6 production at concentrations of 12.5 to 100 g/mL. The main active chemical constituent of was piceatannol that showed antibacterial activity against all test bacteria except . showed a broad spectrum of antibacterial activity against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Piceatannol and resveratrol from the plant strongly inhibited IL-6 production. Based on these results, we concluded that the ethanolic extract of showed both an antibacterial activity and inhibition of IL-6. Piceatannol is the active constituent of the extract and showed anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activities against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.