antimicrobial resistance Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Four Advances That Could Change Tuberculosis Treatment

The AHA! Team — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 05:47:50 +0000

American Chemical Society via EurekAlert! – As of early 2025, tuberculosis cases are increasing in the U.S. As of early 2025, tuberculosis cases are increasing in the U.S. This disease, often shortened to TB, causes significant lung damage and, if not treated, is almost always lethal. World TB Day on March 24 raises awareness about the disease and commemorates Robert Koch’s discovery of the source bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. More than a century later, scientists continue refining TB diagnosis methods and treatment strategies, some of which are in these four ACS journal articles. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org. 1. Fluorescence for a faster TB diagnosis. Currently, testing saliva samples for M. tuberculosis is time-consuming because of the bacterium’s slow growth and resistance to stains used in imaging. To develop a faster method, researchers targeted a protein that the bacterium uses to steal iron ions from its host’s cells. In a study published in ACS Central Science, the team explains how to label the iron-transporter protein with a fluorescent tag, which turns on after releasing the iron inside the M. tuberculosis cells. In separate tests on saliva from 11 people diagnosed with TB, the fluorescence technique identified infectious levels of the bacterium within 10 minutes. 2. White blood cell-focused M. tuberculosis therapy. A type of white blood cell called a macrophage gets taken over during a tuberculosis infection, becoming an incubator for the pathogen. So, researchers report in ACS Infectious Diseases that they have developed sugar-coated nanoparticles that get absorbed by infected macrophages. And once inside, the nanoparticles interrupted critical cellular pathways and prompted the damaged cells to be recycled. In infected mice, 6 weeks of nanoparticle treatment significantly reduced the amount of M. tuberculosis in the lungs. 3. A potential nasal treatment for tuberculous meningitis. If M. tuberculosis reaches cerebrospinal fluid, the result can be tuberculous meningitis — a life-threatening inflammation around a person’s brain and spinal cord. To get the TB drug clofazimine across the blood-brain barrier, researchers have encapsulated it inside tiny particles and created a nasal spray. According to their study in ACS infectious Diseases, the spray didn’t adversely affect mice with tuberculous meningitis. A 4-week treatment significantly reduced the bacterial burden within the animals’ brains and lungs compared to untreated mice. 4. Light-activated particles inactivate bacteria. Many new TB cases are multidrug resistant. So, a research team wanted to improve treatment efficacy and reduce the risk of further antimicrobial resistance by creating a photoreactive therapy. They encapsulated light-activated particles inside nanometer-wide spheres. When the nanospheres were injected into mice, red laser light triggered the particles to produce reactive oxygen species that inactivated Mycobacterium marinum, a bacterium that causes TB-like illness in fish. The initial animal study results are published in ACS Omega. Additionally in March 2025, ACS Webinars and ACS Publications co-hosted a virtual event, “Disrupt & Destroy: Starving Tuberculosis with Smarter Science,” about innovative drug strategies and cutting-edge TB research. The webinar is available to watch on demand. ### Journal ACS Central Science To read the original article click here.

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Commonly Used Sweeteners May Promote Antibiotic Resistance

AHA Publisher — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 08:00:02 +0000

Sally Robertson, B.Sc. via News-Medical Net – Researchers in Australia have conducted a study showing that commonly used nonnutritive sweeteners can promote the spread of antibiotic-resistant genes in the intestine. The study found that the sweeteners saccharine, sucralose, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium all promoted horizontal transfer of the genes between bacteria in both environmental and clinical settings. The sweeteners accelerated the exchange of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) via a process called conjugation. The genes are transferred from donor to recipient bacteria, which may then go on to develop multidrug resistance, says Zhigang Yu and colleagues from The University of Queensland in St. Lucia, Brisbane. Writing in The ISME Journal, the team says the findings provide insight into the spread of antimicrobial resistance and point to the potential risk associated with the presence of these sweeteners in food and drink. Antimicrobial Resistance Poses One of the Greatest Global Threats Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents one of the most significant global threats to public health and biosecurity in the coming decades. Currently, 700,000 people worldwide die from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria every year. It is estimated that 10 million people will die from such infections by 2050 if action is not taken immediately. The emergence of ARGs that give rise to resistant bacteria is generally attributed to the misuse or overuse of antibiotics. The spread of ARGs among different bacterial species is mainly driven by a process called horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Conjugation is an HGT mechanism that transfers ARGs carried on mobile genetic elements such as plasmids from one bacterial cell to another. The ARGs are transferred via a pilus or pore channel connecting the host and recipient bacteria. Where Do Sweeteners Come In? Although nonnutritive sweeteners have been developed and promoted as safe food additives that allow individuals to avoid the adverse effects of consuming sugar, some commonly used sweeteners have recently been associated with health risks. For example, in vitro studies have shown that the sweeteners saccharin (SAC), sucralose (SUC), and aspartame (ASP) can induce the formation of urinary bladder tumors. These sweeteners are also associated with glucose intolerance, which is thought to arise through alterations in the gut microbiota. Studies have also provided evidence that SAC, SUC, and ASP, as well as acesulfame potassium (ACE-K), cause DNA damage in bacteria. The researchers say this is likely to activate the DNA damage response system (SOS response). Furthermore, evidence suggests that conjugative ARG transfer may be related to the SOS response. Studies have also recently demonstrated that the use of SAC, SUC, and ASP is associated with shifts in the gut microbiota that resemble those caused by antibiotics. “As antibiotics can promote the spread of ARGs, we hypothesize that these nonnutritive sweeteners could have a similar effect,” writes Yu and the team. What Did the Researchers Do? The team used three model conjugation systems to investigate whether SAC, SUC, ASP, and ACE-K promote plasmid-mediated conjugative transfer in both environmental and clinical settings. The conjugation process was also visualized at the single-cell level using microfluidics and confocal microscopy. The researchers carried out whole-genome RNA sequencing analysis and measured changes in reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, the SOS response, and cell membrane permeability. What Did They Find? All four sweeteners were found to promote plasmid-mediated conjugative transfer between the same bacteria and different phylogenetic strains. Bacteria exposed to these compounds exhibited increases in ROS production, the SOS response, and conjugative ARG gene transfer at environmentally and clinically relevant concentrations. Cell membrane permeability, especially that of the donor, also played an important role in the frequency of conjugative transfer. When the cell permeability of the donor (but not the recipient bacteria) was increased, a significant increase in conjugative transfer was observed. When the cell permeability of the recipient (but not the donor) was increased, no significant change in conjugative transfer was observed. “It has been reported that in the transfer of ARGs, donors with high expression of the conjugation machinery were shown to be associated with low-receptivity recipients,” says Yu and colleagues. “Thus, the increased permeability of the donor may cause increased ARG transfer to the recipient and result in increased conjugative transfer frequency.” What Are the Implications of the Study? The researchers say studies have previously shown that wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can serve as hotspots for antibiotic-resistant bacteria and ARGs due to HGT among indigenous bacterial species. Since the concentrations of nonnutritive sweeteners used in this study were environmentally relevant, it is reasonable to assume that upon exposure to these compounds, the transfer frequency of ARGs would be promoted in WWTPs, says the team. “It is possible that these sweeteners could cause a cascading spread of ARGs in the WWTPs, thus facilitating increased development of antibiotic resistance in downstream environmental bacteria,” writes Yu and colleagues. “Considering the substantial application of these sweeteners in the food industry (over 117,000 metric tons globally consumed per year), our findings are a wake-up call to start evaluating the potential antibiotic-like roles induced by nonnutritive sweeteners,” concludes the team. To read the original article click here.

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What You Eat May Change the Way That Antibiotics Affect Your Gut

AHA Publisher — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 02:55:45 +0000

Sally Robertson, B.Sc. via News Medical – Net – “Doctors now know that each antibiotic prescription has the potential to lead to some very harmful microbiome-related health outcomes, but they do not have reliable tools to protect this critical community while also treating deadly infections.” A new study by researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island has found that diet can influence how the gut microbiome is affected by treatment with antibiotics. The scientists examined how antibiotics change the gut bacteria in mice and then looked at how diet may exacerbate or mitigate these changes. “For a long time, we’ve known that antibiotics impact the microbiome,” says study author Peter Belenky. “We have also known that diet impacts the microbiome. This is the first paper that brings those two facts together.” Belenky says the goal of his laboratory’s work is to identify new ways to protect the microbiome, which may alleviate some of the worst antibiotic side effects. The Gut Microbiome The gut microbiome is made up of trillions of bacteria that benefit the host. They aid the breakdown of dietary fiber and maintain overall intestinal health by competing with harmful bacteria for resources that would be essential for their survival such as nutrients and space. Although antibiotics save the lives of countless people who are infected with harmful bacteria, these drugs can also disrupt this community of beneficial bacteria that live in the human intestine. This, in turn, can lead to other life-threatening infections. Belenky, who is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Brown’s, has been studying the effect fo antibiotics on the gut and looking for ways to counteract imbalances in the microbiome that can lead to potentially life-threatening infections such as C. difficile. “Although antibiotics disturb the structure of the gut microbiota, factors that modulate these perturbations are poorly understood,” writes the team. Reducing the Detrimental Effects of Antibiotics Through Diet As recently reported in the journal Cell Metabolism, Belenky and colleagues have now demonstrated that although the antibiotics they used did perturb the composition and metabolic capacity of the murine gut microbiome, this disruption could also be exacerbated or minimized by making changes to the animals’ diet. Belenky and colleagues already knew that bacterial metabolism is an important regulator of antibiotic susceptibility in vitro and probably plays a significant role within the host. They applied a metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approach to investigate associations between antibiotic-induced taxonomic and transcriptional responses within the mouse microbiome. For the study, lead author Damien Cabral and colleagues treated three groups of mice with different antibiotics, namely amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin or doxycycline. They then charted how the composition of the animals’ gut microbiomes changed and how bacteria adapted at the metabolic level following treatment. Amoxicillin, an antibiotic commonly used to treat strep throat and ear infections, significantly reduced levels of bacteria in the gut and also changed the genes that the remaining bacteria use. Ciprofloxacin (often used to treat urinary tract infections) and doxycycline (commonly used to treat sinus infections), also altered the gut microbiome, although those changes were less pronounced. The team found that the antibiotics significantly altered the expression of key metabolic pathways at the whole-community and single-species levels. Notably, one type of beneficial bacteria, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, flourished in response to amoxicillin treatment. This bacterium upregulated polysaccharide utilization to aid the digestion of fiber, a change that seems to enable it to bloom in the altered ecosystem and somehow protect against the antibiotic, says Belenky. Generally, the bacteria downregulated the use of genes involved in normal growth processes such as producing new proteins and DNA. They also upregulated their use of genes that are essential in stress resistance The Effects of Glucose (Sugar) Were Clear Interestingly, the researchers found that adding glucose to the animals’ diet — which is usually low in simple sugars and high in fiber — increased susceptibility of B. thetaiotaomicron to amoxicillin. “In vitro, we found that the sensitivity of this bacterium to amoxicillin was elevated by glucose and reduced by polysaccharides,” writes the team. This suggests that diet can provide some beneficial effects that may protect gut bacteria from the adverse effects of antibiotic use. According to Belenky, the findings represent a step toward helping humans to better tolerate antibiotic treatment: Revealing New Opportunities However, “now that we know diet is important for bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics, we can ask new questions about which nutrients are having an impact and see if we can predict the influence of different diets,” he says. Belenky warned that the study only looked at rodents and much remains to be learned about the interplay between host diet, microbiome metabolism and susceptibility to antibiotics. Belenky and team are currently investigating how different types of dietary fibers may impact how the microbiome changes following antibiotic treatment, as well as how diabetes may affect the microbiome’s metabolic environment and vulnerability to antibiotics. To read the original article click here.

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Antimicrobial Resistance Is Drastically Rising

AHA Publisher — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 02:16:08 +0000

ETH Zurich via Science Daily – Researchers have shown that antimicrobial-resistant infections are rapidly increasing in animals in low- and middle-income countries. They produced the first global of resistance rates, and identified regions where interventions are urgently needed. To read the original article and learn more about this rising antimicrobial resistance problem, click here.

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