Potential Mechanism of Action of 3'-Demethoxy-6-O-Demethylisoguaiacin on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is one of the major causative agents associated to infections with a high morbidity and mortality in hospitals worldwide. In previous studies, we reported that lignan 3'-demethoxy-6-O-demethylisoguaiacin isolated and characterized from Larrea tridentata showed the best activity towards methicillin-resistant S. aureus. Understanding of mechanism of action of drugs allows design drugs in a better way. Therefore, we employed microarray to obtain gene expression profile of methicillin-resistant S. aureus after exposure to 3'-demethoxy-6-O-demethylisoguaiacin. The results showed that lignan had an effect on cell membrane affecting proteins of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transport system causing bacteria death. This study consisted of comparison of isolated RNA of MRSA not treated and MRSA treated with lignan 3'-demethoxy-6-O-demethylisoguaiacin. Both RNAs samples were differentially dyed with Cy3 and Cy5 during cDNA synthesis and hybridized on DNA chip. Afterwards, the chip was scanned in a GenePix 4000B scanner. The resulting gene expression profile was analyzed in databases for functional annotations to find a potential mechanism of the lignan in MRSA.