Antibiotic resistance is one of medicine's most pressing problems. Now, a team from Korea is tackling this in a unique way: using bacteria to fight bacteria.
Before the discovery of penicillin in 1928, millions of lives were lost to relatively simple microbial infections. Since then, antibiotics have transformed modern medicine. The World Health Organization estimates that, on average, antibiotics add 20 years to each person's life. However, the overuse of antibiotics has put pressure on bacteria to evolve resistance against these drugs, leading to the emergence of untreatable superbugs.
Now, researchers at South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) aim to fight fire with fire by launching predatory bacteria capable of attacking other bacteria without harming human cells. "Bacteria eating bacteria. How cool is that?" asks Professor Robert Mitchell, the team leader. He and his colleagues are also developing a natural compound called violacein to tackle Staphylococcus, a group of around 30 different bacteria known to cause skin infections, pneumonia and blood poisoning. Some Staphylococcus bacteria such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are resistant to antibiotics, making infections harder to treat.
Violacein is a so-called 'bisindole': a metabolite produced by bacteria from the condensation of two molecules of tryptophan (an essential amino acid used in many organisms to ensure normal functioning and avoid illness and death). This compound is vibrant purple in colour and of interest to researchers for its anticancer, antifungal and antiviral properties. Researchers have discovered that it can stop bacteria from reproducing, and even kill the multidrug resistant bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, when used in the right doses. It also works well in conjunction with other existing antibiotics.
Previously on SoylentNews: Predatory Bacteria could be a New Weapon Against Superbugs
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Researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham have found a novel way of killing harmful bacteria that cause infection — setting predator bacteria loose to eat the harmful ones.
Experiments showed a dose of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus acted like a "living antibiotic" to help clear an otherwise lethal infection.
The animal studies, published in Current Biology , suggested there would be no side effects.
[...] Dr Michael Chew, from the Wellcome Trust medical research body, said: "It may be unusual to use a bacterium to get rid of another, but in the light of the looming threat from drug-resistant infections the potential of beneficial bacteria-animal interactions should not be overlooked.
"We are increasingly relying on last-line antibiotics, and this innovative study demonstrates how predatory bacteria could be an important additional tool to drugs in the fight against resistance."
University of Sheffield and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) scientists have discovered several new related (dinuclear RuII) compounds which visualize and kill gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli (note - no word on whether it works on synthetic E.coli)
Bacteria are classified generally by what type of staining works on them using a method developed in the 1800's by Hans Christian Gram. 'Gram-negative' bacteria retain a stain color that shows them as a pinkish red coloring, these bacteria have cell walls that make it difficult to get drugs into them and many gram-negative bacteria have become significantly or even completely resistant to available drug treatments.
A new drug in the difficult gram-negative space is particularly important. Drug resistant bacteria already cause the deaths of over 50 thousand people a year in the US and EU alone, and as many as 10 million people a year could die worldwide every year by 2050 due to antibiotic resistant infections.
Doctors have not had a new treatment for gram-negative bacteria in the last 50 years, and no potential drugs have entered clinical trials since 2010.
The new drug compound has a range of exciting opportunities. As Professor Jim Thomas explains: "As the compound is luminescent it glows when exposed to light. This means the uptake and effect on bacteria can be followed by the advanced microscope techniques available at RAL.
"This breakthrough could lead to vital new treatments to life-threatening superbugs and the growing risk posed by antimicrobial resistance."
The studies at Sheffield and RAL have shown the compound seems to have several modes of action, making it more difficult for resistance to emerge in the bacteria.
Better yet
Mammalian cell culture and animal model studies indicate that the complex is not toxic to eukaryotes, even at concentrations that are several orders of magnitude higher than its minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).
The researchers plan to test the compounds against additional multi drug resistant bacteria next.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:09PM (5 children)
> bacteria capable of attacking other bacteria without harming human cells
What else do bacteria do? Mutate easily.
How long before one of them figures out that all those nearby human cells are tastier, and we need bacteria-eating-eating bacteria to keep us from melting into zombies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:19PM (2 children)
You do realize your body is already stuff of 1000s of strains of bacteria, right?
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:25PM
I also realize that most of them should remain uneaten...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday March 23 2017, @11:35AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:41PM
Human cells aren't tastier. Bacteria have different metabolic needs and human cells are very hostile (both passively as an environment as well as actively destroying) to anything that finds its way inside.
Intracellular pathogens are highly specialized (due to coevolution) to their host organism at an incredibly large fitness cost. These bacteria are far less likely to adapt to invading human cells than typical bacteria are.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:23PM
bacteria-eating-eating bacteria
I think you mean bacteria-eating-bacteria-eating bacteria [schlockmercenary.com]. No, wait, anti-bacteria-eating... Ah screw it, we know what you mean.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:13PM
There was this episode about snakes and gorillas.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:29PM
The bacteria strain that eats other bacteria from the inside-out is Bdellovibrio. Science has known about them for a while, so the "New" part of the title is related to the metabolite identified.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bdellovibrio [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rts008 on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:48PM (1 child)
The 'Phage', for some reason popped into my head upon reading this.
Hopefully all will go as expected. If not, some of you are probably screwed.(even if it goes horribly wrong, at 60, I doubt I would live long enough for it to be anything more than yet another sad piece in the news for me)
It has occurred to me that we may be in that era that is portrayed in sci-fi, where a civilization knows just enough about [insert favorite tech here] to be dangerous, and then comedy ensues.
"KHHAAAAAANNN!!!!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:04PM
We are 100% already there! For the sci-fi reference: Beta radiation [youtube.com]
Queue pretty much every other problem we've had due to our technology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:50AM
"Triggered" being the operative word. It will then be triggered by those who infected us by these "harmless" bacteria to become mind-controlling machines. Then we will be all but useless in fighting the system. That is what they want. I would rather live the old way and take my chances than let some virus/bacteria replicate inside my body turning me into a mindless drone doing the bidding of the cabal running the world.