Researchers are defeating persistent bacteria

[Suzy]

I ran across this first article to share Scientists discover how some bacteria avoid antibiotics… here http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270743.php and found they have discovered a substance called HipA that helps bacteria avoid antibiotics. I was surprised this wasn’t already known or maybe it was and this is just bringing it to light again. Well, the end of the article contained a link to another related paper called Researchers are defeating persistent bacteria known for causing infections in hospitals… found here http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/263587.php. It talks about the resistant infections in hospitals, but why couldn’t it relate to any resistant bacteria’s?

The bacteria, Enterococcus faecalis, are the second-leading cause of hospital-associated infections in the U.S., said Lynn Hancock, associate professor of biology and leader of the research. His team has discovered how a regulatory system helps this bacteria resist a host’s innate immune defense – a finding that may help develop novel drug compounds to fight the bacteria. Enterococcus faecalis, or E. faecalis, is naturally found in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and other mammals. But outside the intestinal walls, the bacteria can cause bacteremia, urinary tract infections and endocarditis.

The article goes on to talk about how the bacteria develops a system of evasion and resistance to antibiotics.

An added obstacle is that the bacteria are 100 to 1,000 times more resistant to lysozyme than other bacteria, Hancock said. Lysozyme is an infection-fighting substance that humans produce and is found in numerous body tissues, such as tear film, the urinary tract and saliva. The regulatory system of E. faecalis also makes it very resistant to other cellular stresses – such as elevated temperature, low pH and oxidative stress – that are part of a person’s innate immune defense and help fight infection.

By understanding the bacteria’s regulatory network, the researchers hope to develop novel drug compounds that can block the bacterium’s ability to sense and respond to the presence of lysozyme and other stresses during infection. To find the bacteria’s weakness, the scientists focused on a protein called Eep. While studies have shown that Eep is important during infection, the Kansas State University researchers discovered how Eep contributes to an important stress response that the bacteria use to survive the host defense.

It is an important finding because now researchers can develop compounds that inhibit the Eep protein, which makes the bacteria susceptible to lysozyme and stops infection. When humans produce lysozyme to fight the bacteria, the bacteria will be unable to fight back.

This Eep protein inhibition sounds promising….for stubborn Lyme, Myco (etc…). making them not so hard to treat ?

While the bacteria are still able to live without the Eep protein, the bacteria need it to cause infection, Hancock said. Studies have shown that when the Eep is inactivated, bacteria are compromised nearly 10,000-fold in their ability to cause infection.

“The ability to interfere with a bacteria’s ability to establish infection is going to become a more popular theme for treating infections rather than simply killing the bacteria,” Hancock said. “When you put selective pressure on bacterial populations to live or die, they are really good at circumventing the drugs and getting around the killing mechanism.”

For future research, Hancock and his team want to find what compounds are most effective at interfering with Eep to make the bacteria susceptible to lysozyme. They also want to study the SigV protein, which coordinates expression of target genes that are controlled by the Eep protein. Similar to Eep, if SigV is inactivated, then the target genes are not expressed and the bacteria do not become resistant to lysozyme. These target genes and proteins may also lead to new drug development possibilities.

What I found most interesting is the statement on the future of treating these infections

“The ability to interfere with a bacteria’s ability to establish infection is going to become a more popular theme for treating infections rather than simply killing the bacteria,” Hancock said. “When you put selective pressure on bacterial populations to live or die, they are really good at circumventing the drugs and getting around the killing mechanism.”

Seems like a move in the right direction !!

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