Potato Peel Extract May Work As Antibiotic

An extract made from potato peels prevents bacteria from sticking to cells, which is the first step in causing infection. Researchers suggest this discovery may lead to new alternatives to traditional antibiotics.

Potatoes are widely used medicinally in indigenous cultures, and contain large amounts of polyphenol oxidase (PPO), Since PPO is known to have antiadhesive properties, they screened potato extracts and found that an extract from the peel inhibited Streptococcus sobrinus 6715 bacteria and a strain of Escherichia coli from sticking to cells, but did not kill the bacteria.

they suspected that PPO might be responsible for the inhibition, because the extracts had PPO activity, the extract contained a protein that was the same size as purified PPO, and PPO inhibitors blocked the extract's ability to block bacterial adhesion.

However, whether the antiadhesive action is due to PPO is not really the issue. ``Adhesion is a necessary first step in order to cause disease, otherwise (bacteria) just get washed out of the body,'' Researchers said. ``All the thousands and thousands of people who are screening plants to find antimicrobial substances, their initial screening techniques would only catch substances that inhibit growth and would not catch antiadhesives.''

Researchers working on antiviral strategies already work on blocking viral attachment to the host, she noted, but blocking adhesion is considered a novel strategy for antimicrobial compounds.

they noted that antibiotics that kill bacteria can cause the release of toxic substances that can cause damaging inflammatory responses, which would not be an issue with an antiadhesive. In addition, they think that bacteria would be less inclined to develop resistance to an antiadhesive, although they envision these compounds as ``another weapon in what needs to be a diverse arsenal of antimicrobial therapies.''