Antibacterial Activity of Caiman latirostris plasma: Preliminary results.

SIROSKI PABLO; DI CONZA JOSÉ; PIÑA CARLOS; LARRIERA A.

Montelimar, Francia

Workshop; XVIII Working meeting of Crocodile Specialist Group (CSG/SSC/UICN).; 2006

Crocodilians hard skin acts as a local defense barrier to prevent the entrance of microorganisms.  Habitually, microorganisms gain entrance if the skin is injured.   Once this barrier is crossed, both mechanisms come into play. Under unusual conditions, the chance that microorganisms cause the death of the crocodiles increases (Shotts et al 1972; Brisbin, 1982). These conditions can be the stress caused by extreme temperatures, captures, inappropriate feeding, etc. There are numerous studies carried out to detect antimicrobial activities in a number of products from animal and vegetable sources. Crocodilians have one of the strongest immune system. In order to explain this, several studies were carried out with some crocodilian species (Britton et al., 2002; Merchant et al., 2003; Shaharabany et al.,1999; Siruntawineti et al. 2004; Dasari et al, 2004). Some researches ascribe it to antimicrobial peptides and others to the complement system that recognizes a lot of different antigens. The main goal of this study was to compare plasma antibacterial activity from different species: broad snouted caiman (Caiman latirostris), hen (Gallus gallus) and humans, against Escherichia coli (ATCC 11105). Preliminary analyses confirmed the presence of antibacterial activity in C. latirostris, G. gallus and human plasma against E. colli (11105). There is an apparent correlation between bactericidal activity of C. latirostris and G. gallus plasma against E. coli time intervals. At present, results confirmed that antibacterial activity of broad snouted caiman plasma is higher than hen and humans. Our results show that broad snouted caiman and hen plasma antibacterial activity inhibit the significant growth of E. coli between l and 3 hs time intervals.