Octenidine/carbenicillin GUMBOS as potential treatment for oropharyngeal gonorrhoea.

<bold>Background: </bold>Reducing Neisseria gonorrhoeae colonies in the oropharynx is a viable solution to minimize the transmission of this bacterium amongst individuals.<bold>Objectives: </bold>A strategy involving the electrostatic interaction between a common antiseptic and a discontinued antibiotic (i.e. octenidine and carbenicillin) was evaluated as a potential treatment for gonorrhoea. Octenidine/carbenicillin is a novel group of uniform materials based on organic salts (GUMBOS) with inherent in vitro antibacterial activity that comes from its parent antiseptic and antibacterial ions, octenidine and carbenicillin, respectively.<bold>Methods: </bold>Antibacterial activities for octenidine dihydrochloride, disodium carbenicillin, octenidine/carbenicillin and stoichiometrically equivalent 1:1 octenidine dihydrochloride to disodium carbenicillin were assessed using the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion assay for N. gonorrhoeae (ATCC 49226) and three clinical isolates. Predictive permeability using the Parallel Artificial Membrane Permeability Assay and cytotoxicity against HeLa cells was also evaluated.<bold>Results: </bold>Additive in vitro antibacterial activities against N. gonorrhoeae were observed in this study, which suggests octenidine/carbenicillin could be a useful agent in reducing N. gonorrhoeae transmission and minimizing gonorrhoea infections. Octenidine/carbenicillin also exhibited bioequivalence to azithromycin and doxycycline, two currently prescribed antibiotics. Likewise, octenidine/carbenicillin had improved predicted permeability compared with octenidine dihydrochloride.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Antimicrobial GUMBOS synthesized in this study could be used as an adjunctive treatment approach to current drug therapies for oropharyngeal gonorrhoea infection control and prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]