Anti- (MYA-4889, ATCC) activity of Thai propolis from the stingless bee .

, a lipophilic pathogen, is known to be involved in various chronic skin diseases. Unfortunately, the available treatments have unwanted side effects and microbial drug resistance is evolving. As the antimicrobial activity of propolis is outstanding, this study aimed to examine the potential of propolis from the stingless bee against the yeast. Anti- growth activity was ascertained in agar well diffusion and broth microdilution assays and the inhibitory concentration value at 50 % (IC) was determined. Since the yeast cannot synthesize its own fatty acids, extracellular lipase is important for its survival. Here, anti- extracellular lipase activity was additionally investigated by colorimetric and agar-based methods. Compared to the crude hexane and crude dichloromethane extracts, the crude methanol partitioned extract (CMPE) exhibited the best anti- growth activity with an IC of 1.22 mg/mL. After CMPE was further enriched by silica gel column chromatography, fraction CMPE1 (IC of 0.98 mM or 184.93 μg/mL) presented the highest activity and was later identified as methyl gallate (MG) by nuclear magnetic resonance analysis. Subsequently, MG was successfully synthesized and shown to have a similar activity, and a minimal fungicidal concentration of 43.44 mM or 8.00 mg/mL. However, lipase assay analysis suggested that extracellular lipase might not be the main target mechanism of MG. This is the first report of MG as a new anti- compound. It could be a good candidate for further developing alternative therapeutic agents.