Antimicrobial potential of myricetin-coated zinc oxide nanocomposite against drug-resistant Clostridium perfringens

BACKGROUND: Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens) is an important pathogen in livestock animals and humans causing a wide array of systemic and enteric diseases. The current study was performed to investigate the inhibitory activity of myricetin (MYR), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocomposite against growth and α-hemolysin of C. perfringens isolated from beef meat and chicken sources. RESULTS: The overall occurrence of C. perfringens was 29.8%. The prevalence of C. perfringens was higher in chicken (38.3%) than in beef meat products (10%). The antimicrobial susceptibility testing revealed that C. perfringens isolates exhibited high resistance levels for metronidazole (93%), bacitracin (89%), penicillin G (84%), and lincomycin (76%). Of note, 1% of C. perfringens isolates were pandrug-resistant (PDR), 4% were extensive drug-resistant (XDR), while 91% were multidrug-resistant. The results of broth microdilution technique revealed that all tested C. perfringens isolates were susceptible to MYR-loaded ZnO/PVA with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ranged from 0.125 to 2 µg/mL. Moreover, the MYR either alone or combined with the nanocomposite had no cytotoxic activities on chicken red blood cells (cRBCs). Transcriptional modifications of MYR, ZnO, ZnO/PVA, and ZnO/PVA/MYR nanocomposite were determined, and the results showed significant down-regulation of α-hemolysin fold change to 0.5, 0.7, 0.6, and 0.28, respectively compared to the untreated bacteria. CONCLUSION: This is an in vitro study reporting the antimicrobial potential of MYR-coated ZnO nanocomposite as an effective therapeutic candidate against C. perfringens. An in vivo approach is the next step to provide evidence for applying these alternatives in the treatment and prevention of C. perfringens-associated diseases. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12866-023-02800-5.