A technique that measures the metabolic activity of bacteria with an electrical probe can identify antibiotic resistance in less than 90 minutes. A dramatic one to two day improvement required by current techniques.
Doctors could quickly learn about antibiotic resistance
This discovery means that doctors could quickly know which antibiotics will or won’t work for a patient’s life-threatening infection. A dilemma that doctors face on a daily basis in hospitals around the world.
“The idea here is to give doctors results much more quickly so that they can make clinically appropriate decisions within the time frame they are working on, rather than having to wait.” Said Douglas Call, a Regents professor at the Paul G. Allen School for Global Health and a co-author of the paper.
“Instead of looking for the growth of a crop, we look for the metabolism, and that is basically what we are detecting by the movement of these electrons. So it can happen in much shorter periods of time compared to a conventional culture-based trial. “
The prevalence of antibiotic resistance is increasing worldwide
The prevalence of antibiotic resistance is increasing worldwide and threatens the ability to treat many common infectious diseases. For example, millions of people are infected with drug-resistant pathogens annually. And thousands of people die from pneumonia or bloodstream infections that become untreatable.
To definitively determine if a particular infection is resistant to antibiotics. You need to separate and then grow the bacteria in a lab and watch the population grow in a process that can take up to two days or more.
Doctors dealing with a sick patient often have to prescribe an antibiotic right away without having complete information on how well it will work.
HOW WAS ACHIEVED?
In their paper, the team used a probe to directly measure the bacteria’s electrochemical signal. Thus measuring their metabolism and respiration and learning how they were doing long before they were visible in cultivation.
By looking at eight different strains of bacteria, the researchers were able to use the electrical signal from the bacteria to determine in less than 90 minutes which ones were susceptible or resistant to antibiotics.
Bacteria that are still metabolized and “breathed” after antibiotic treatment are considered resistant.
Previous attempts to measure the electrochemical activity of bacteria had been limited because most bacterial species are not capable of transferring electrons directly to an electrode. Said Abdelrhman Mohamed, a postdoctoral researcher.
The researchers added a chemical mediator to their assay, which acted like a shuttle. Taking the electrons from the proteins on the surface of the bacteria and moving them to the researchers’ electrode. Where the electrical signal can be measured.
“That allows us to have a universal mechanism that can test all kinds of pathogens,” said Mohamed.
The researchers tested four different bacterial species
The researchers tested four different bacterial species that cause hospital-acquired infections and tested a variety of antibiotics that work through different mechanisms. They also developed an antibiotic susceptibility index to categorize the results in a way that could help clinicians decide which antibiotic to use.
The researchers now plan to design their probe to be convenient and standardized for doctors to use and hope to market.
“It is really exciting to participate in a project that is not only valuable from a scientific point of view. Rather, it has commercial and industrial applications that could one day improve people’s lives. ” Said Gretchen Tibbits, lead author of the paper and a graduate. student at Voiland school.
They are also working to better understand the fundamental mechanisms of the electrochemical process to further improve it.
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