Our work on Krameria lappacea is now published! 🌿💊
Finding new antibacterial compounds is exciting... but it may not always be the only answer to antimicrobial resistance. New antibacterial pressure can also lead to the selection of new resistance mechanisms.What if natural products could instead help us make better use of the antibiotics we already have?
Combining supercritical CO₂ extraction, LC-HRMS/MS metabolite profiling, molecular networking, MS-guided isolation and antibacterial assays, we explored both the chemistry and biological activity of K. lappacea roots. The neolignan-enriched KL5 extract showed the strongest antibacterial activity (MIC 3–12 µg/mL against Gram-positive bacteria) and potentiated gentamicin in several strains, with FICI values reaching 0.27–0.48. We then isolated and characterized one of its major benzofuran neolignans, compound 21. Interestingly, while compound 21 was antibacterial on its own, its combination with gentamicin was only additive — suggesting that the synergy observed with KL5 cannot be reduced to a single major constituent.
There is another aspect of this work that matters a lot to us. The project originated from a collaboration with theLickanAntay community of Taira in the Atacama Desert, around the study and valorisation of their traditional medicine.
Traditional knowledge does not come from nowhere:it has an origin, a history, and knowledge holders.Recognising community members who contributed to this research asco-authors, and explicitly acknowledging the origin of this knowledge, is one way we can contribute to more collaborative (and less extractive) practices in ethnopharmacology.
Two reasons, then, to rethink how we do natural-products research:the strategies we explore against antimicrobial resistance, and the way we recognise the knowledge that makes these discoveries possible. 🔬
Bravo to all co-authors, specially to Hugo Debelvalet and François Gauvin for their work and our collaborators: Pierre Fechter, Regine JANEL, Sabrina Boutefnouchet et raphael grougnet.
