SEARCH FOR BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES WITH ANTIMICROBIAL AND ANTIBIOTIC POTENTIATING PROPERTIES AMOUNG MEMBERS OF THE GENUS ARTEMISIA AGAINTS THE MAIN PATHOGENS OF INFECTIOUS SKIN LESIONS

Active components of the genus Artemisia show a wide range of antimicrobial effect against most bacterial pathogens. In addition, artemisin isolated from wormwood is used to treat chloroquine-resistant malaria. Antimicrobial and antibiotic-potentiating effects of eight aqueous ethanolic extracts (40 %, 70 % and 90 %) aerial part of the genus Artemisia aqueous against S. aureus and S. epidermidis strains with various types of resistance to macrolides, lincosamides, tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones isolated from outpatients with different forms of pyoderma have been researched with agar diffusion micromethod. Determination of effective antimicrobial concentrations of antimicrobials and test extracts against staphylococci have been performed with serial dilutions micromethod. The statistical program "Statistica", computer programs UTHSCSA Image Tool 3.0 and Microsoft Office Excel 2016 have been used for statistical processing of microbiological research results. The pronounced antimicrobial effect of the wormwood extract Artemisia dracunculus L. (MIC 125.0 - 250.0 μg/ml) against all S. aureus and S. epidermidis test strains has been established. Other studied extracts showed much weaker antimicrobial effect (MIC 1000.0 - 1500.0 μg/ml). It was found that the species of staphylococci and the phenotype of resistance of test strains do not affect antimicrobial activity of the studied extracts. We have found that there is no clear сorrelation between antimicrobial properties of the studied extracts and the phenotype of resistance of staphylococci test-strains. Extracts were equally effective against staphylococcal strains with low level of resistance by efflux of antimicrobial drug and skin isolates with chromosomal resistance. The greatest resistance to BAC of the studied extracts was showed by test strains with a high level of resistance to antibiotics of MLS-group and tetracycline, exhibiting sensitivity only to tarragon wormwood. Active components of 70, 90 % common mugwort extract Artemisia vulgaris L. (increase of the inhibition zone up to 117 – 142 %, p<0.05) and southern wormwood extract (increase of the inhibition zone up to 50 – 59 % and 74 – 122 %, respectively, p<0.05) showed dose-dependent synergistic interaction with erythromycin. Common mug-wort extract (70 %) showed synergistic interaction with ¼ MIC of tetracycline (increase of the inhibition zone up to 100 %) against strains with combined resistance to all studied antimicrobials. For the study we used crude total extracts of medicinal plants (40 %, 70 % and 90 % ethanol), so we expect their significantly higher antimicrobial effect against staphylococcal strains while optimizing the extraction process and subsequent purification. It should be noted that 90 % aqueous ethanol extracts showed significantly better antimicrobial properties compared to 40 % and 70 % extracts. Active compounds of tarragon wormwood Artemisia dracunculus L. extract show pronounced antimicrobial effect against S. aureus and S. epidermidis strains, the main causative agents of infectious skin lesions, with different types of resistance to macrolides, lincosamides, tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones. Dose-dependent synergistic interaction with macrolides of common mugwort Artemisia vulgaris L. extracts and southern wormwood Artemisia abrotanum L. ex-tract with macrolides (erythromycin) and tetracycline has been revealed.