Nat Commun: A new strategy to combat antibiotic resistance

February 17, 2020 / BIOON / -- bioscience engineers at the University of Leuven, Belgium, have developed a new antibacterial strategy to weaken bacteria by blocking their cooperation Unlike antibiotics, this strategy has no resistance because the number of non resistant bacteria exceeds that of resistant bacteria The results were published in nature communications Traditional antibiotics kill or reduce the activity of individual bacteria Some bacteria are resistant to these antibiotics, allowing them to grow further and replace those that are not Therefore, the use of antibiotics leads to more and more bacteria resistant to antibiotics Photo source: nature communications, however, bacteria also exhibit group behavior: for example, they can form a protective mucus layer or biofilm to wrap their entire bacterial community Plaque is an example of this biofilm Biofilm is usually the source of bacterial infection The social behavior of bacteria is an interesting new target of antimicrobial therapy The researchers found that preventing Salmonella from producing slime weakened the bacterial community and made it easier to remove They used a chemical antibacterial substance that was previously developed at the University of kuluwen "Without their protective mucus layer, bacteria can be washed away by mechanical forces and are more likely to be killed by antibiotics, disinfectants or the immune system," said Professor steenackers of the mica laboratory, the lead author of the study "Then, in a so-called evolutionary experiment, the scientists compared the development of bacterial resistance to this new substance with that of traditional antibiotics Evolutionary experiments are used to observe how microorganisms adapt to certain environments "We found that bacteria, as a group, are not resistant to our antimicrobial substances, and the absence of antibiotics will lead to resistance, which will happen soon," steenackers explained In addition, we found that the number of bacteria that were not resistant to new antimicrobial substances far exceeded those that were resistant Resistant bacteria can still produce mucus and share mucus with non resistant bacteria in the population However, this requires energy consumption, and non resistant bacteria can be protected free of charge Therefore, non resistant bacteria grow faster than resistant bacteria, so their proportion with resistant bacteria increases "Therefore, compared with traditional antibiotics, this substance does not lead to selection, but to resistance Therefore, it may be a feasible solution to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance to prevent bacteria from working together "Our goal is to introduce these new antibiotics into clinical practice," steenackers explained "They can be used as prophylactics in the form of tablets or as coatings on implants to reduce the risk of infection The substance can also be used with antibiotics "In addition, there are several possible applications in agriculture, industry and even in our families To this end, researchers work with experts in a variety of applications and with producers of animal feed, cleaning products and disinfectants The researchers are also looking at whether they can replicate this phenomenon in other forms of microbial collaboration alongside biofilms and in collaboration with other bacteria Steenackers concluded: "in the long run, this concept can also be used to develop alternatives to antibiotics "Reference: Hans P steinackers Inhibiting biological cooperation is an evolutionarily robust anti biofilm strategy Nature communications, 2020; 11 (1) doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-13660-x