Feature Channels: Drug Resistance

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A team of Sandia National Laboratories microbiologists for the first time recently sequenced the entire genome of a Klebsiella pneumoniae strain, encoding New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1). They presented their findings in a paper published in PLOS One, “Resistance Determinants and Mobile Genetic Elements of an NDM-1 Encoding Klebsiella pneumoniae Strain.”

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An anticonvulsant drug called lamotrigine is the first chemical inhibitor of the assembly of ribosomes in bacteria.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised a new antibiotic based on vancomycin that is powerfully effective against vancomycin-resistant strains of MRSA and other disease-causing bacteria.

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Kansas State University biochemists have discovered a family of proteins that could lead to better treatments for Staphylococcus aureus, a pathogenic bacterium that can cause more than 60,000 potentially life-threatening infections each year.

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Advances in the prevention and treatment of an often fatal condition called bacterial meningitis appear to be paying dividends in the United States, report infectious disease experts at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

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As the Food and Drug Administration mulls over whether to rein in the use of common antibacterial compounds that are causing growing concern among environmental health experts, scientists are reporting today that many pregnant women and their fetuses are being exposed to these substances. They will present their work at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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A novel antibiotic delivery system would exploit small molecules called siderophores that bacteria secrete to scavenge for iron in their environments. Each bacterium has its own system of siderophores, which it pumps across its cell membrane before releasing the iron the siderophores hold. If an antibiotic were linked to one of these scavenger molecules, it would be converted into a tiny Trojan horse that would smuggle antibiotics inside a bacterium’s cell membrane.

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A fungus living in the soils of Nova Scotia could offer new hope in the pressing battle against drug-resistant germs that kill tens of thousands of people every year, including one considered a serious global threat.

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The aim of the project is to evaluate novel dosing regimens for polymyxin combinations to maximize antibacterial activity and to minimize the emergence of resistance and toxicity, says Tsuji, principal investigator on the grant.

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Leading public health researchers and trade experts will convene in Washington to address the spread of antibiotic resistance, the role of food animal production and the consequences of using the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to weaken existing standards to facilitate trade.

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Despite being touted by their manufacturers as a healthy alternative to cigarettes, e-cigarettes appear in a laboratory study to increase the virulence of drug- resistant and potentially life-threatening bacteria, while decreasing the ability of human cells to kill these bacteria

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An international research team led by Cesar A. Arias, M.D., Ph.D., at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) has identified a new superbug that caused a bloodstream infection in a Brazilian patient. The report appeared in the April 17 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

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Infections caused by a specific type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise in U.S. children, according to new study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. While still rare, the bacteria are increasingly found in children of all ages, especially those 1-5 years old, raising concerns about dwindling treatment options.

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It has been more than 10 years since the clinical battle began with community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and doctors are still grappling with how to diagnose, treat and prevent this virulent form of staph infection, which is immune to many antibiotics. As MRSA cases have increased dramatically over the decade, so have the number of skin abscesses — generally pus-filled boils or pimples with discharge — that characterize these infections. A New England Journal of Medicine report features updated guidelines outlining the best ways to treat and manage these abscesses - authored by emergency room doctors on the front lines of treating these infections. Also included are tips to help prevent MRSA from spreading.

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Honey, that delectable condiment for breads and fruits, could be one sweet solution to the serious, ever-growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, researchers said here today. Their study was part of the 247th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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In response to drug-resistant “superbugs” that send millions of people to hospitals around the world, scientists are building tiny, “molecular drill bits” that kill bacteria by bursting through their protective cell walls. They presented some of the latest developments on these drill bits, better known to scientists as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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A new study by scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute has uncovered a mechanism of drug resistance. This knowledge could have a major impact on the development of a pair of highly potent new antibiotic drug candidates.

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A research team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., is the first to decipher the 3-D structure of a protein that confers antibiotic resistance from one of the most worrisome disease agents: a strain of bacteria called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which can cause skin and other infections. The Vanderbilt team's findings may be an important step in combatting the MRSA public health threat over the next 5 to 10 years.

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Watch out, infection. University of Iowa researchers have crated a probe that can identify staph bacteria before symptoms appear. The probe is noninvasive and is expected to be cheaper and faster than current diagnostic techniques. Results published in the journal Nature Medicine.

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A research project supervised by Kansas State University's Juergen Richt is showing promise in fighting the deadly novel avian H7N9 influenza virus.

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— In the past decade, a single strain of Escherichia coli, or E. coli, has become the main cause of bacterial infections in women and the elderly by invading the bladder and kidneys, according to a study published today in the American Society for Microbiology’s open access journal mBio.

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Nanosponges that soak up a dangerous pore-forming toxin produced by MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) could serve as a safe and effective vaccine against this toxin. This “nanosponge vaccine” enabled the immune systems of mice to block the adverse effects of the alpha-haemolysin toxin from MRSA—both within the bloodstream and on the skin. Nanoengineers from the University of California, San Diego described the safety and efficacy of this nanosponge vaccine in the December 1 issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

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Around 20 percent of all humans are persistently colonized with Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, a leading cause of skin infections and one of the major sources of hospital-acquired infections, including the antibiotic-resistant strain MRSA. University of Chicago scientists have recently discovered one of the keys to the immense success of S. aureus—the ability to hijack a primary human immune defense mechanism and use it to destroy white blood cells. The study was published Nov 15 in Science.

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Friendly microbes in the intestinal tracts of healthy American children have numerous antibiotic resistance genes that could be passed to harmful microbes, according to a pilot study by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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A Penn Medicine researcher is among the winners of a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) “academic drug hunter” competition that will help fast track his lab’s work to stop drug-resistant bacteria.

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Nanoscale images, presented at the AVS Meeting in Long Beach, Calif., may provide ‘hole’ story on pore-making antibiotic peptides

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On October 22, JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments will publish a novel technique to confront the problem of antibiotic resistance.

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A new type of antibiotic called a PPMO, which works by blocking genes essential for bacterial reproduction, successfully killed a multidrug-resistant germ common to health care settings, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

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By tinkering with their chemical structures, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have essentially re-invented a class of popular antimicrobial drugs, restoring and in some cases, expanding or improving, their effectiveness against drug-resistant pathogens in animal models.

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For the first time researchers have found an association between living in proximity to high-density livestock production and community-acquired infections with MRSA. Their analysis concluded that approximately 11% of community-acquired MRSA and soft tissue infections in the study population could be attributed to crop fields fertilized with swine manure. The study is the first to examine the association between high-density livestock operations and manure-applied crop fields and MRSA infections in the community.

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A drug approved just two years ago for treating bacterial infections may hold promise for treating the potentially fatal MRSA pneumonia, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study. Researchers found that patients treated with the antibiotic ceftaroline fosamil, or CPT-F, had a lower mortality rate after 28 days than the mortality rate seen in patients treated with vancomycin, the most common drug therapy for MRSA pneumonia.

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Investigators working to stem the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria have taken a major step in their efforts to develop new treatments.

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An increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria that cause pneumonia in cattle prompted scientists at the Kansas State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory to survey records of pneumonia (also called bovine respiratory disease or BRD) cases over a three-year period. They discovered that drug resistance in one of the primary pathogens that cause BRD, Mannheimia haemolytica, increased over the three-year period 2009 to 2011.

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A team of researchers led by the University of Iowa is recommending clinical guidelines that will cut the post-surgical infection rate for staph bacteria (including MRSA) by 71 percent and 59 percent for a broader class of infectious agents known as gram-positive bacteria. The recommendations come after an extensive review of hospital practices in the U.S. and are published in the British Medical Journal.

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In an age when microbial pathogens are growing increasingly resistant to the conventional antibiotics used to tamp down infection, a team of Wisconsin scientists has synthesized a potent new class of compounds capable of curbing the bacteria that cause staph infections.

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On May 8th JoVE will publish research that demonstrates how a biosensor can detect antibiotic resistance in bacteria. This new technology is a preliminary step in identifying and fighting superbugs, a major public health concern that has led to more deaths than AIDS in the United States in recent years. The technology is the result of collaboration between Dr. Vitaly Vodyanoy at Auburn University and the Keesler Air Force Base with funding from the United States Air Force.

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A protein complex found in human breast milk can help reverse the antibiotic resistance of bacterial species that cause dangerous pneumonia and staph infections, according to new University at Buffalo research.

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Microbiologists have identified mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in a clinical isolate of E. coli resistant to carbapenems, a class of “last resort” antibiotics. The new study, in April’s Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, found the E. coli genetically mutated four times to resist the antibiotic, showing the lengths to which bacteria will go to survive.

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How's this for a top 10 list: "Top 10 ways to prevent infections this year." Beyond the obvious—steering clear of runny noses and hacking coughs—the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) presents some other practical ways of staying infection-free.

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Each month, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) issues consumer tips on infection prevention. The February 2013 feature is titled "Outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics—what you need to know."

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An automated device is yielding a new understanding of how antibiotic resistance evolves at the genetic level. This work will be presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society (BPS), held Feb. 2-6, 2013, in Philadelphia, Pa.

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New research from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine has pinpointed a gene that causes the dominant strain of MRSA infection to linger on the skin longer than other strains, allowing it to be passed more readily from one person to the next.

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Daily baths with an ordinary antibacterial cleanser can safely reduce the risk of dangerous bloodstream infections in critically ill children, according to a trial conducted in five pediatric hospitals and led by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. A report on the findings of the research -- the first of its kind in children and one of the largest infection-prevention trials to date -- will be published online Jan. 26 in The Lancet

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Prototype drug stabs membranes to kill microbes that cause pneumonia, sepsis, other infections.

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Researchers have discovered a toxin in community-associated MRSA that kills human cells.

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University at Buffalo microbiologists studying bacterial colonization in mice have discovered how the very rapid and efficient spread of antibiotic resistance works in the respiratory pathogen, Streptococcus pneumoniae (also known as the pneumococcus). The UB team found that resistance stems from the transfer of DNA between bacterial strains in biofilms in the nasopharynx, the area just behind the nose.

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Researchers from North Carolina State University have increased the potency of a compound that reactivates antibiotics against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).