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Researchers from the University of California, San Diego have developed a speedy method to determine whether bacteria are susceptible to antibiotics, potentially slowing the emergence of drug resistance among patients, a new report said. In a study reportedly published this week in the journal EBioMedicine -- the latest issue of which is yet to be uploaded online -- the team of biologists and biomedical researchers say the test, which seeks out the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, can determine an outcome within hours.
The rapid test can reportedly help medical professionals determine whether bacteria strains found in those infected are either resistant or sensitive to traditional antibiotics. Because infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus, widely known as staph infection, can spread rapidly throughout communities, the new test can significantly cut down the time required to discover which antibiotics to use. "Previously we developed a microscopy-based method that performs an autopsy on bacterial cells that allows us to determine how each cell died, asn we have show that this method can identify new antibiotics and help understand hose these antibiotics work," Kit Pogliano, the team's leader, said.
Scanning electron micrograph of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and a dead human neutrophil.
"We tested to see if this method could be applied to antibiotic susceptibility testing. Surprisingly, we not only found that our method was able to accurately differentiate sensitive S. aureus strains from resistant [methicillin-resistant S. aureus] strains, but that we were able to identify two subgroups of MRSA strains, one of which is susceptible to combinations of antibiotics that could be used in the hospital." "We are excited by the accuracy and speed of this test," Pogliano continued," as well as by its unanticipated ability to identify these two types of MRSA infections ,which would have been missed by other tests."
The team of researchers from UC San Diego consisted of infections disease specialists Dr. Victor Nizet and Dr. George Sakoulas, biologists Kit Pogliano and Joe Pogliano, and graduate student Diana Quach. The new method is in the process of being commercialized by Linnaeus Bioscience Inc. in order to be used clinically through the industrial market.
Researchers develop fast test for antibiotic susceptibility - UPI.com
Scientists at Duke University found differences in how the body reacts to viral and bacterial infections, which they said could help reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics. Gene expression in patients differs depending on their infection, which scientists say can be used to determine whether antibiotics are the right course of treatment.
Many patients go to the doctor with viral infections, but expect an antibiotic to be prescribed despite their only being effective against bacterial infections.
Three-quarters of respiratory infection patients are prescribed antibiotics, despite the drugs being ineffective against viruses -- which get better on their own. A clear diagnostic test could verify for both the patient and doctor if the drugs are worth taking, which the scientists said would eliminate expectations and pressure from patients to receive the drugs based on the expectation they cure everything. "Antibiotics treat bacteria, but they do not treat viruses," Dr. Ephraim Tsalik, an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University, told HealthDay. "That's why distinguishing between these various causes of illness is very important to get the right treatment to the right patient, and to offer a prognosis for how the patient is likely to do," Tsalik said.
After finding the genetic difference, scientists recruited 273 people with respiratory infections and 44 healthy people in a study, published in Science Translational Medicine, to determine the accuracy of the test. The test was accurate with 87 percent of the participants at distinguishing between bacterial, viral and other infections. This, Tsalik said, is an improvement over the 78 percent accuracy rate of a test that measures inflammation he said could reduce antibiotic use by 40 to 50 percent if it were used. Further research will be done using the test with people of varying ages and ethnicities, as well as if other tests could be used for infection detection.
Blood test may indicate antibiotic efficacy
Health officials around the world have seen a steady rise in bacterial infections that no longer respond to routine antibiotics. With resistance emerging faster than new drugs can be developed, the WHO has called for urgent action to combat the problem. Last year, Chief Medical Officer for England Sally Davies warned that antibiotic resistance could spell “the end of modern medicine,” with routine operations becoming impossible because doctors run out of antibiotics to keep common infections at bay. In the latest research, US scientists focused on a small, but important group of recurrent infections, which are driven by bacteria that evade antibiotics by lying dormant in the body. The infections tend to affect people with medical implants or with particular conditions such as cystic fibrosis.
Led by a team at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, the scientists tested the effects of 82,000 lab-made molecules on roundworms infected with MRSA. From the 185 compounds that showed some effect, they selected two of the most promising for further attention. Both belonged to a family of molecules known as retinoids, which were originally developed in the 1960s to treat acne and cancer. They are chemically similar to vitamin A. Tests on the two retinoids, combined with computer modelling, showed that the compounds killed not only normal MRSA cells, but dormant, or “persister,” cells too. The drugs worked by making the membranes that surround the bacteria more leaky. The same effect explained why the retinoids worked even better when used in tandem with an existing antibiotic called gentamicin.
However, there was a downside: The drugs were not effective against an entire group of harmful bacteria for which new antibiotics are badly needed. Responsible for urinary tract infections, stomach bugs, gonorrhoea, pneumonia and the plague, among other diseases, these include Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Yersinia pestis. However, the drugs still hold promise for treating persistent MRSA infections that can be lethal for patients affected. Writing in Nature, the scientists describe how they tweaked one of the retinoid compounds to make it less toxic and then injected it into a mouse with what would generally be considered to be a treatment-resistant MRSA infection. The drug not only cleared the infection, but did so without causing any apparent side effects, the authors said.
Lead scientist Eleftherios Mylonakis, whose mother died from a drug-resistant hospital infection, said the drug was years away from human trials, but added: “The hope is that we are a step closer to finding a treatment for the most difficult bacteria” “The MRSA persisters are resistant to antibiotics and MRSA is both common and very virulent,” Mylonakis said. The rise of drug-resistant infections is a direct consequence of evolution. When people or animals are given antibiotics, some of the bacteria the drugs are meant to kill could survive because they have chance mutations that protect them. Over many microbial generations, these mutations become more dominant and the bacteria more resistant, meaning that new drugs are needed to wipe them out. To make matters worse, bacteria of different species can swap protective genes with one another.
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