Killing the Superbug
Reported November 07, 2008
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — The potentially deadly superbug could soon meet its match. Results of a new study bring scientists closer to killing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Researchers from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) captured the first images of how MRSA spreads antibiotic-resistance from one bacterium to another. Conjugative pili — slender, thread-like bacterial filaments — extend and retract on live cells, making them resistant to modern antibiotics.
Using fluorescent dye, researchers were able to record the process these pili use to spread antibiotic resistance from filament growth, attachment to other cells and retraction to pull the cells together to prepare for genetic transfer.
Researchers say this is an important step forward in understanding how antibiotic resistance spreads. More people in the U.S. die of MRSA each year than of HIV/AIDS, Philip Silverman, Ph.D., an OMRF researcher and study author, was quoted as saying. Its crucial that we do all we can to combat this profound threat to human health.
Last year, government reports estimated in a single year, nearly 19,000 people died in the United States after contracting an MRSA infection. Easily transmittable, antibiotic-resistant infections enter the body through breaks in the skin — even microscopic ones — and nasal passages. These infections often affect patients in hospitals where many patients have compromised immune systems. Many doctors call superbug infections one of the greatest threats facing health care today.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008
