The development of antimicrobial resistance is of world-wide concern, and has the potential to lead to an era where the causative agents of once treatable infections return to  their pre-antimicrobial state.  This will ultimately result in greater health care costs and increasing death rates.

Fungi have already proven to be a potentially valuable source of novel bioactive compounds, including those demonstrating anti-microbial, anti-oxidant and/or anti-cancer properties.  However to date, the metabolites of only a small number of fungal species have been therapeutically examined.

Russula spp are members of a basidiomycetous fungal family, commonly found in Australian temperate forests.  While not known for their anti-microbial properties, research in this area has also been spasmodic and inconsistent, employing a wide variety of extraction methods and testing protocols.  It has also included very few Australian species.  Through the taxonomic investigation of these species in this PhD project, the opportunity has arisen to also examine some of their metabolic properties.

Methanolic extracts were prepared from three species of Russula.  Following drying and pre-adsorption onto C18-bonded silica, seven duplicate fractions were collected via preparative HPLC.  These were subsequently dried and resuspended at a concentration of 20mg/ml in 100% DMSO.  Pathogenic microbes including E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans were exposed to the preparations following a modified well diffusion technique.

This presentation will explore the results obtained, difficulties experienced, and future directions of this aspect of this project.