Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess the effective-ness of anti-inflammatory drugs employed in Chinese traditional medicine against bacteria as-sociated with periodontitis. As for antimicrobial actions of crude drugs, only a few bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtitis, have been used as target organisms. Therefore, few studies have been reported on the antimicrobial action of crude drugs on bacteria associated with periodontitis.
Ten crude drugs were selected from among those used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat inflam-matory disease. These crude drugs were tested for their effectiveness against Porphyromonas gingivalis and Prevotella intermedia used by the modified minimum medium method. Crude extracts of Coptidis rhizoma, Phellodendri cortex, and Scutellar-iae radix exhibited more effective antimicrobial action than the other drugs. These effects were clearly displayed at a concentration of crude drug of 1 mg/ml. In this report, berberine an ingredient of Coptidis Rhizoma, was examined for the presence of antimicrobial action toward periodontium-associat-ed bacteria. We fractional the extract of Coptidis Rhizoma by thin-layer chromatography; and when examined for the presence of antimicrobial action, the fractions of berberine and coptisine showed antimicrobial action.
The results suggest that the crude drugs used for their anti-inflammatory effects in Chinese tradi-tional medicine have an antimicrobial effect on bacteria associated with periodontitis.
