International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 2 Number 7 (2013) pp. 12-21

Immunoadjuvant activity of honey against bacterial antigens: In vivo study

Mohammed A.K.AL-Saadi

Department of Microbiology/College of Medicine/Babylon University, Hilla, Iraq *Corresponding author e-mail: mbmc.kadhum70@gmail.com

A B S T R A C T

Honey is a natural biological product with a various medicinal activities. This study aimed to investigate the immunoadjuvant activity of orange honey (OH) to enhance the immune response against Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria. Two clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus were used as test bacterial antigens. Albino Swiss male rats were treated with OH, another group of animals were not treated with OH as control. Animals then immunized with somatic antigens for both isolates .Specific and nonspecific immune parameters were estimated. Significant increase (p 0.05) in phagocytic index was measured for groups of animals treated with OH and immunized with both isolates compared with animals groups not treated with OH. The same results were estimated for IL-12 and complement component C3.Significant increase in concentration of IFN- was estimated in animals treated with OH and immunized with somatic antigen of Staph. aureus. Antibody titer was highly increase in animals treated with OH and immunized with somatic antigen of P. aeruginosa. Also, C4 was significant increase in the later animal group. The results provide a good support for the role of OH in the enhancement of specific and non specific immune response against bacterial infections.

Keywords

Honey; immuno- adjuvant activity; Gram positive bacteria; phagocytic index