Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

In vitro interaction between caffeine and some penicillin antibiotics against Staphylococcus aureus.

C O Esimone¹, FBC Okoye² , C S Nworu³, C O Agubata⁴

¹Department of Pharmaceutics.; ²Department of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry,; ³Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria,; ⁴Department of Pharmacy, Ministry of Health, Anambra State, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria..

For correspondence:- FBC Okoye Email: basdenc@yahoo.com Tel:+234-8033607639

Published: 21 June 2008

Citation: Esimone CO, Okoye F, Nworu CS, Agubata CO. In vitro interaction between caffeine and some penicillin antibiotics against Staphylococcus aureus.. Trop J Pharm Res 2008; 7(2):969-974 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v7i2.6

© 2008 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the in vitro interaction of some penicillins (amoxicillin, ampicillin and benzylpenicillin) and caffeine against Staphylococcus aureus.

Method: The interaction between the penicillins and caffeine was studied using the Overlay Inoculum Susceptibility Disc (OLISD) method. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of the drugs were determined separately and in combination with caffeine (5 and 10 mg/ml).

Result: At 5 and 10 mg/ml, caffeine decreased the MIC of amoxicillin by 22 and 25 times respectively, while that of ampicillin was decreased by 6 and 8 times. The MIC of benzylpenicillin against Staphylococcus aureus was, however, increased by 59 and 40 times at caffeine concentrations of 5 and 10 mg/ml respectively. The inhibition zone diameter increment above 19 % (index of synergism in OLISD method) was recorded only for amoxicillin at amoxicillin concentrations of 7.81, 15.3, 31.25 and 62.5 mg/ml.

Conclusion: The results of this study revealed that the concomitant use of caffeine and the studied antibiotics may potentiate the antibacterial effect of amoxicillin against Staphylococcus aureus, decrease that of benzylpenicillin and has virtually no effect on that of ampicillin. This implies that the intake of caffeine in form of analgesic combination or as tea, coffee, beverages or from other food sources may affect the effectiveness of a co – administered amoxicillin and bezylpenicillin.

Keywords: antimicrobial interactions, caffeine, ampicillin, amoxicillin, bezylpenicillins, penicillins