Microcalorimetric investigation of the antibacterial activity of curcumin on Staphylococcus aureus coupled with multivariate analysis

The antibacterial effect of Curcumin on Staphylococcus aureus growth was evaluated by microcalorimetry. The heat flow power?Ctime curves and nine quantitative parameters of the S. aureus growth were applied to investigate the inhibitory effect with Curcumin. By analyzing these curves and some quantitative parameters using multivariate analytical methods, similarity analysis and principal component analysis, the antibacterial activity of Curcumin on S. aureus could be accurately evaluated from the change of the two main parameters, the second exponential growth rate constant k ₂ and the maximum heat flow power P _m ² . The main two thermal parameters played more important role in the evaluation: at low concentration (0?C10.5???g?mL^?1), Curcumin hardly influence the growth of S. aureus, while at high concentration (10.5?C43.4???g?mL^?1) it could notably inhibit the growth. All these illustrated that the antibacterial activity of Curcumin on S. aureus was enhanced with the increase of the concentration of this compound. This study might provide an useful method and idea accurately evaluate the antibacterial effects of Curcumin, which provides some useful methods for evaluate the nature antibacterial agents.