Ghosts of scary bacteria rattle chains of nanopowder
Scientists from Saudi Arabia have turned antibiotic-resistant bacteria into "ghosts"NanoNewsNet based on ACS materials:
Antibiotics wrapped in nanofibers turn resistant disease-producing bacteria into ghostsThe Nanopauk unit, which produces nanofibers
for encapsulation of antibiotics.
Such antibiotics are able to successfully fight
resistant pathogenic bacteria
and mushrooms. (Photo: Elmarco s.r.o.)
The encapsulation of antibiotics in nanofibers, like mummies in sarcophagi, makes them capable of killing drug-resistant bacteria so effectively that scientists describe the remnants of pathogenic microorganisms as "ghosts". The new technology is described in detail in a report presented on March 29 at the 241st National Meeting and Exhibition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Anaheim, California.
The leader of the group of scientists who have achieved this success, Mohamed El-Newehy, PhD, believes that the new technology will have a significant impact on the ongoing fight against antibiotic-resistant infections. According to statistics, more than 100,000 people develop such infections annually in the United States alone, with 20 percent of the diseases ending in death. The annual health care costs allocated to the fight against resistant infections exceed $20 billion.
"The rapid emergence of bacteria resistant to the most commonly used antibiotics has become a serious public health problem," says El-Nevehi. "There is an urgent need for new antibiotics that work differently and can overcome resistance. Our approach is not to find new antibiotics, but new ways of delivering existing drugs."
According to El-Nevehi, such an approach can lead to success much faster than the development of completely new dosage forms – a process that usually takes 10-12 years and requires from $800 million to $2 billion in financial investments. It can be used against a wide range of bacteria to treat diseases, prevent bacterial and fungal contamination in the food industry, inhibit the growth of microorganisms in drinking water and improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
The technology consists in encapsulating conventional antibiotics in nanofibers made of polyvinyl alcohol and polyethylene oxide – plastic bundles so thin that the silk thread produced by the spider seems gigantic in comparison with them. Such nanofibers are even indistinguishable under a conventional microscope.
Scientists knew that a large ratio of surface area to the weight of the material gives nanofibers special properties. These properties make it possible to use them in many fields – in dressings, medical textiles, antibacterial materials for controlling postoperative inflammation, in stimulating wound healing, especially diabetic ulcers, and new methods of drug delivery. They decided to test the effect of several antibiotics encapsulated directly in nanofibers on laboratory cultures of various microbes. Antibiotics have proven to be extremely effective against various pathogenic bacteria and fungi, including E. coli (Escherichia coli) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pseudomonas aeruginosa), two of the most drug–resistant microorganisms.
"When treated with antibiotics encapsulated in nanofibers, serious damage to microbes occurred, many bacterial cells increased in volume, lengthened, fragmented or turned into empty "ghosts"," El-Nevehi comments on the results of the experiments. "The nanofibers themselves, without an antibiotic, had no effect on the bacteria. They probably work by enhancing the action of antibiotics. Packaging of antibacterial substances in fibers makes the action of drugs more targeted, and the substances themselves remain effective for a longer period of time than with the usual method of their delivery."
The research was funded by the Petrochemical Research Chair King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At the disposal of this department is also the first unit in Saudi Arabia ("Nanopauk") for the production of nanofibers. Officials intend to make every effort to create a nanofiber Research Center at the Petrochemistry Research Department and make it the main center for studying the use of the new material.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru01.04.2011