Potency of honey as antibacterial agent against multiple antibiotic resistant pathogens evaluated by different methods

Honey is rich with complex natural components which could be useful as antibacterial agents or as preservative. Honey contains high concentration of sugars, low amount of water, high osmolality and often dark colour which influence its antibacterial activity. Disc diffusion, well method, micro dilution assay are methods commonly used to determine the antibacterial activity of honey. In this study, microtiter and microbial plate count were included to ascertain the potency of honey as antibacterial agent against multiple antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella Typhimurium, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) with concentration of 0.2 g mL-1. Results found that well diffusion method tends to give higher inhibitory zone than disc diffusion method but there was no correlation among the bacteria was observed except for S. Typhimurium, E. coli (R = 0.310, 0.505 and 0.316, respectively). Nan photometer assay and microtiter plates assay showed comparable results with moderately strong correlation (R2 = 0.681 and 0.767, respectively) for S. aureus and S. typhimurium, but poor correlation was found for E. coli, B. subtilis and P. aeruginosa (R2 = 0.441, 0.308 and 0.383, respectively). Determining the number of survivors by plating on agar after nanophotometer assay or microtiter plate assay had confirmed the effectiveness of honey as antimicrobial agent against target bacteria; which confirmed that honey has the potency to inhibit pathogens even at low concentration. � 2014 M.M. Aween et al.