An effective antimicrobial strategy of colistin combined with the Chinese herbal medicine shikonin against colistin-resistant Escherichia coli .

Importance: Infections caused by multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli (MDR E. coli ) have become a major global healthcare problem due to the lack of effective antibiotics today. The emergence of colistin-resistant E. coli strains makes the situation even worse. Therefore, new antimicrobial strategies are urgently needed to combat colistin-resistant E. coli . Combining traditional antibiotics with non-antibacterial drugs has proved to be an effective approach of combating MDR bacteria. This study investigated the combination of colistin and shikonin, a Chinese herbal medicine, against colistin-resistant E. coli . This combination showed good synergistic antibacterial both in vivo and in vitro experiments. Under the background of daily increasing colistin resistance in E. coli , this research points to an effective antimicrobial strategy of using colistin and shikonin in combination against colistin-resistant E. coli .
Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.