Antimicrobial Compound Found in Sunflower Honey

Worobo Discovers Compound in a Honey That Could Lead to a New Natural Preservative
Amanda Garris, Chronicle Online, 10/17/11

Honey has been used as a topical antibiotic since the Egyptians wrote papyrus prescriptions. Now, a Cornell food scientist has identified an antimicrobial compound in a honey that makes it a promising candidate as a natural preservative to prevent food-borne illness and food spoilage.

Randy Worobo, associate professor of food microbiology at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, and his lab members tested more than 2,000 strains of bacteria from eight types of honey from the United States and New Zealand. One of them stood out.

"In sunflower honey from South Dakota, we identified a strain of Bacillus thuringiensis the biological control known to organic gardeners as 'Bt' — which was effective against common food-borne pathogens including Listeria monocytogenes, the bacteria behind the recent deadly cantaloupe outbreak," said Worobo. "This Bt strain was intriguing, because it had both strong antibacterial and strong antifungal activity."

In analyzing the compounds produced by the bacteria, they found one with strong antibacterial activity that they designated as thurincin H. They recognized it as a bacteriocin, a common class of antimicrobials that bacteria produce to compete against other microbes. But compared with the some 40 known bacteriocins, it is unique: It is coded in the bacterial DNA as a unit containing three identical copies of the same bacteriocin gene.

Their findings were reported in September in Angewandte Chemie International Edition….