Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid isolated from Chinese herbal medicines such as Coptis chinensis. It has many pharmacological actions, such as antibacterial, hypoglycemic, anti-inflammatory, and so on. However, due to the low lipophilicity of berberine, it is difficult to penetrate the bacterial cell membrane and also difficult to be absorbed orally and usually needs a relatively high dose to achieve the ideal effect. The purpose of this study is to transform the structure of berberine in order to improve the bioavailability of berberine and reduce the dosage. Moreover, we introduce a pharmacophore named Canagliflozin, a hypoglycemic drug (which was also found to have potential anti-bacterial activity) into BBR to see whether this new compound has more existed activities. We at first connected berberine with Canagliflozin, to form a new compound (BC) and see whether BC has synergic effects. We use microbroth dilution method to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration of BC, determine the bacterial growth with the enzyme labeling instrument, observe the formation of bacterial biofilm with crystal violet staining method, observe the bacterial morphology with field emission scanning electron microscope, and determine the intracellular protein with SDS-PAGE. The above indicators reflect the damage of BC to bacteria. New compound BC was successfully obtained by chemical synthesis. The minimal inhibitory concentration of compound BC on three bacteria was significantly better than that of berberine and canagliflozin alone and the combination of berberine and canagliflozin. Moreover, compound BC has obvious destructive effect on bacterial morphology and biofilm, and the compound also has destructive effect on intracellular proteins. Therefore, new compound BC has broad-spectrum antibacterial activity and the inhibitory effect of BC might play a role by destroying the integrity of biofilm and the intracellular protein of bacteria. In conclusion, we create a new molecular entity of berberine and Canagliflozin chimera and open up a new prospect for berberine derivatives in the treatment of bacterial infection.
Keywords: antibacterial activity; berberine; canagliflozin.