Background: Polyherbal medicines are used for the treatment of many diseases in many African and Asian
communities. With the increasing use of these remedies, several investigations have shown that they are associated
with a broad variety of residues and contaminants. This study investigates the presence of bacteria in the polyherbal
medicines used for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
Methods: Bacterial DNA was extracted from the polyherbal medicines, and a fragment of the bacterial 16S
rRNA gene was amplified by PCR with universal primers 27F and 518R. The amplicons were visualised on
agarose gel electrophoresis, followed by end repair and adaptor ligation. They were further purified and
quantified using Library Preparation kit NEBNext
® UltraT DNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina, and the amplicons
were run on illumina’s MiSeq platform.
Results: Different bacterial species were identified in all each of the polyherbal medicines. Generally, the most
prominent and common bacteria recovered from all the samples were
Bacillus
sp.,
Enterobacter
sp.,
Klebsiella
sp.,
Rahnella
sp.,
Paenibacillus
sp.,
Clostridium
sp. and
Pantoea
sp. Others are
Pseudomonas
sp.,
Raoultella ornithinolytica
,
Salmonella enterica
and
Eubacterium moniliforme
.
Conclusions: This study, thus, revealed the presence of pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria in the polyherbal
medicines used for the treatment of tuberculosis in the study area. The implications of the findings are discussed in
relation to the health care of the patients of tuberculosis in the study area, having in mind that they are
immunocompromised individuals.
