Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology

AC-ALL is the extract mixture of natural products. It is known that AC-ALL has antimicrobial activity on Propionibacterium acnes (P. acnes), the causative organism of acne which is gram positive bacterium. The anti-microbial activity against P. acnes is very important to develop cosmetics or drug preventing pimple on face. Here we identified components of AC-ALL which have anti-microbial activity on P. acnes.

P. acnes was provided from Korean Collection for Type Cultures (KCTC). AC-ALL is provided from GL Biotech. Co., Ltd. P. acnes was culture in autoclaved GMA broth (Gifu Anaerobic Broth, Nissui 5422, Japan) with anaeropack (MGC, A=0.4, Japan) at 37°C and the speed of 150 rpm in rectangular jar (MGC, 2.5L A-110, Japan). It also was cultured on autoclaved Plate Count Agar (PCA) with anaeropack at 37°C for 3 days. The anti-microbial activity of AC-ALL was measured by growth inhibition of P. acnes. To test the anti-microbial activity, the growth of P. acnes was measured by OD600 in the presence or in the absence of AC-ALL. AC-ALL was analyzed with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer (Clarus 600 series+TurboMatrix HSS Trap, Perkin Elmer, USA).

In this study, the anti-microbial effect of AC-ALL on P. acnes was tested. We designed experiments to identify the components of AC-ALL showing efficacy to inhibit the growth of P. acnes. First, we tested the anti-microbial activity of AC-ALL by following the growth of P. acnes in the presence or in the absence of AC-ALL. It showed AC-ALL has good inhibitory activity on growth of P. acnes. Even only 2% of the mixes extract can inhibit 90% of the growth of P. acnes. We then analyzed the component of AC-ALL through Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) and identified six major component peaks such as eucalyptol, Linalool, D-camphor, borneol, caryophyllen and linalyl acetate. We then purchased component compounds from companies one by one and tested the anti-microbial activity of those compounds on P. acnes. When six major compound at the component compound ratio of AC-ALL was added on the growth medium during the culture of P. acnes, the growth of P. acnes was inhibited as much as AC-ALL. Even though any single compound except linalyl acetate was added on growth medium, the growth of P. acnes was also inhibited more or less. These results from this study suggest that six major components have real inhibitory ingredients of AC-ALL on the growth of P acnes.

AC-ALL can be applied to develop new cosmetics or drugs to treat the acne. The source of AC-ALL is natural products. So AC-ALL can have advantage over currently used drugs to treat acne in terms of side effect.