The typical treatment for a bacterial infection: antibiotics. These life-saving chemicals have had an enormously positive impact on human health and longevity, providing treatments for diseases that once killed millions of people. The problem: antibiotics are becoming less and less useful as bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance. Diseases once thought to be a thing of the past are re-emerging with antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria causing infections. For example, the black plague, which decimated the population of Europe back in the 1300's, is re-emerging with the evolution of antibiotic strains of Yersina pestis.
Antibiotics treat bacterial infections by killing the bacteria or by inhibiting bacterial growth allowing the immune system to eliminate the invading bacterial cells. Antibiotic resistance mechanisms rapidly evolve due to the selective pressure put on bacterial populations to gain resistance. Any bacterial cell with a mutation that allows it to survive antibiotic treatment will proliferate, passing on the antibiotic resistance trait to all its descendants, resulting in a population of antibiotic-resistant cells.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio have recently tried a different approach to treating bacterial infection.
They are searching for an alternative treatment for Staphylococcus aureus infections. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) is a serious cause for concern due to a large number of hospital-aquired (nosocomial) infections.
Instead of using drugs to kill MRSA, they designed a drug that would simply prevent the cells from releasing the toxins that make people sick. The bacteria are not destroyed by the drug, so there isn't any selective pressure for the bacteria to evolve resistance mechanisms.
No comments:
Post a Comment