Inhibitory Activity of Ethanol Extract from <i>Artemisia argyi</i> on a Clinical Isolate of <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i>

As a traditional herbal medicine for the treatment of many disorders, Artemisia argyi has shown many valuable bioactivities, but little is known about its effect on Staphylococcus aureus. In this study, the growth, the biofilm formation and the pathogenicity of S. aureus cultivated with or without ethanol extract of A. argyi were tested using microtitre plate assay, Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (CLSM) system and mice infection assay. Results showed that the growth and the biofilm formation of S. aureus in the test group with ethanol extract of A. argyi were significantly lower than those of the control group without ethanol extract of A. argyi. With CLSM system we could observe that the biofilm structure of the test group had looser and less biomass compared with the control group. After infection of S. aureus, the survival of mice in test group that were given 0.2 mL 100 mg/mL ethanol extracts of A. argyi was higher than the control group. Histopathological analyses showed that the tissue damage of mice in test group was less than that in control group. These results suggested that ethanol extract of A. argyi had inhibitory effect on S. aureus and could protect mice from death induced by S. aureus infection.