Bacterial Friend?

Bdellovibrio bacteria act as 'living antibiotic' against important human pathogen

Scientists have found that a predatory bacterium significantly reduces the number of salmonella bacteria in the guts of live chickens, suggesting that the bacterium has potential to be used as a "living antibiotic."

Researchers at the University of Nottingham found that Bdellovibrio reduced the numbers of Salmonella by 90 percent and the birds remained healthy, grew well, and were generally in good condition.

Salmonella likes to grow in the guts of poultry and other animals and can cause food poisoning in humans.

Dr Laura Hobley said "Bdellovibrio has the potential to be used as a living antibiotic against some major human and animal pathogens, such as E. coli and other so-called Gram-negative bacteria."

She continued "We think that Bdellovibrio could be particularly useful as a topical treatment for wounds or foot rots but we wanted to know what might happen if it is ingested - either deliberately as a treatment, or by accident."

Previous studies have shown that Bdellovibrio is very effective at invading and killing other bacterial cells in a test tube.

And now it looks likely to provide an alternative to antibiotic medicines at a time when bacterial resistance is a significant problem to human and animal health.

Reference:R. J. Atterbury, L. Hobley, R. Till, C. Lambert, M. J. Capeness, T. R. Lerner, A. K. Fenton, P. Barrow, R. E. Sockett. Studying the effects of orally administered Bdellovibrio on the wellbeing and Salmonella colonization of young chicks.. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2011; DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00426-11


Professor Douglas Kell, Chief Executive, BBSRC said "Once we have understood the fundamental nature of an extraordinary organism such as Bdellovibrio, it makes sense that we should look at potential uses for it. The impact of bacterial infections on human and animal health is significant and since antibiotic resistance is a major issue, alternatives from nature may become increasingly important."

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NEW MRSA STRAIN IN MILK

Conventional MRSA is most commonly found in hospitals

Friday June 3,2011

By Dana Gloger

BRITISH milk has become infected with the deadly MRSA superbug for the first time. The strain is resistant to antibiotics and cannot be detected by standard tests because its genetic make-up is so unusual.

The bug is already infecting humans, with 15 cases in England and 12 in Scotland. Scientists at Cambridge University discovered the bug in cow’s milk while researching an unrelated infection in the animals’ udders.

They found evidence of humans and cows with exactly the same sub-type of the new MRSA strain, which they said suggested transmission between animals and people. It is thought the bug has been spread by farm workers.

Conventional MRSA is most commonly found in hospitals but the scientists, whose study is published today in medical journal The Lancet, discovered that the DNA of the new strain is different.

This means existing tests cannot pick it up. Scientists are now frantically trying to develop a new testing system. Experts are still attempting to assess the public health risk but have said there is no threat to the safety of milk and dairy products because pasteurising should kill the bug.

Dr Mark Holmes, who led the research, said cases of the new strain were rising. “But we are fairly sure in the last three or four years there haven’t been any deaths attributable to this new MRSA.”

The Soil Association called for an immediate ban on the routine use of antibiotics on animals “even if that means milk has to cost a few pennies more. That would be a very small price to pay for maintaining the efficacy of these life-saving drugs.”

Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/250483/New-MRSA-superbug-found-in-milkNew-MRSA-superbug-found-in-milk#ixzz1OAGjVKl1

The Insanity Virus

Schizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. Wrong, says a growing group of psychiatrists. The real culprit, they claim, is a virus that lives entwined in every person's DNA.

Link: The Insanity Virus

Bacteria To Blame In Asthma Attacks In Children

Doctors have long known that viral infections can bring about asthma attacks and the shortness of breath, coughing, and wheezing associated with them. But while viral infections cannot be treated, scientists at the Danish Paediatric Asthma Centre (DPAC) at the University of Copenhagen and Gentofte Hospital have discovered that treatable bacterial infections can also cause asthma attacks. The discovery could revolutionise treatment.
The study examined 361 children between the ages of four weeks and three years to determine the presence of viral and bacterial infections during severe asthma attacks. The results conclude that the number of attacks was just as high in children with bacterial respiratory infections as in those with viral infections.
Using antibiotics to treat asthma attacks?

"This indicates that bacteria can exacerbate asthma symptoms even if they aren't infected with a virus," Professor Bisgaard says. "The findings open up an entirely new method for treating severe asthma attacks. We can't treat viral infections, but scientists will now look into whether treatment with antibiotics can help children when they have an asthma attack if they are also suffering from a bacterial infection. Being able to use antibiotics to treat asthma attacks in children would be revolutionary.”

The effects of antibiotics in treating asthma attacks will now be examined in large-scale, clinical study by the DPAC.
Source: University of Copenhagen
Friday, October 08, 2010

Papillomavirus infection and the link with cancer

Papillomaviridae are small non-encapsulated viruses with a double-stranded DNA circular genome of approximately 8 kbp. Papillomavirus (PV) DNA has been recovered from the skin and lesions of many mammalian species. Moreover, PVs or their genetic material have also been found in birds and turtles. Many PVs seem to cause asymptomatic infections and have been recovered from the healthy skin of many mammals. Negative results in certain mammals could reflect inadequacies in experimental techniques or extinction/sorting events in certain host species. Other PVs induce conspicuous infections of the epithelia and give rise to hyperkeratotic lesions, such as plantar and hand warts in humans caused by HPV1, oral warts in dogs caused by CPV1 and horny warts in the cottontail rabbit caused by SfPV1. Infections by particular human PVs, such as HPV6 and HPV11, cause genital warts and are among the most common sexually transmitted infections.

Infectious agents can account for 20% of the global cancer burden. Several PVs are recognized by the World Health Organization as human carcinogens, as the link between cancer of the cervix and infection by so-called ‘high-risk’ human PVs (e.g. HPV16 or HPV18) is well established. World estimations in 2004 attribute more than 270,000 deaths to cervical cancer, 85% of them in developing countries (http://www.who.int/hpvcentre/en/). Globally, PVs account for more than 30% of all infection-associated cancers in humans, as they are also putatively involved in cancers of the penis, vagina, vulva, anus, perianal region and head and neck. The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine awarded to Harald zur Hausen “for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer” acknowledges the importance of this connection (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2008/). Two vaccines using capsid proteins as immunogens from the most clinically relevant human PVs that cause cervical cancer have been recently licensed and seem to offer at least mid-lasting protection (4–6 years). Certain PV-related malignancies could thus become preventable diseases, but projections for 2030 still foresee more than 470,000 deaths and almost 4 million years of life lost due to cervical cancer in the absence of a widespread application of human PV vaccines (http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/projections/en/index.html).

From: The clinical importance of understanding the evolution of papillomaviruses. Ignacio G. Bravo, Silvia de Sanjosé and Marc Gottschling. Trends in Microbiology. Volume 18, Issue 10, October 2010, Pages 432-438.

NDM-1 Superbug

Recently, alarm has been raised over the spread of drug resistance to carbapenem antibiotics among coliforms (E.coli and Klebsiella), due to production of an enzyme named NDM-1 (or New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase).

Carbapenems are a class of beta-lactam antibiotics that have broad spectrum activity and are often reserved for emergency use and 'last resort' treatment. They have a structure that renders them highly resistant to beta-lactamases found in antibiotic resistant bacteria. Resistance to the carbapenems is found throughout India.

Bags for life could have E. coli

Tests on shoppers’ bags revealed half contained traces of E.coli, a lethal toxin which killed 26 people in Scotland in 1996 in one of the worlds worst food poisoning outbreaks.

Scientists also found many were contaminated with salmonella.

Reusable plastic shopping bags have become increasingly popular in Britain thanks to supermarkets and other retailers giving out millions of free ones to shoppers in the last three years.

It is estimated that there are "hundreds of millions" of bags for life in use in Britain, according to sources within Wrap, the Government's anti-waste watchdog. Because the vast majority of people do not wash their bags after each shopping trip, they could be putting themselves at risk.

The tests were undertaken by the University of Arizona, whose researchers stopped a total of 84 shoppers to check the state of their bags.

The researchers warned the levels of bacteria they found were high enough to cause a wide range of serious health problems and even death.

Children may be in the greatest danger, they added, as they are particularly vulnerable to the effects of organisms such as E.coli.

Many of the bags for life are made from jute or woven polypropylene, helping to reduce the amount of so-called "virgin plastic" used in carrier bags by 40 per cent in just the last three years.

But while they are better for the environment, the new research suggests they could be harmful to health if not cleaned regularly.

Professor Charles Gerba, who led the study said: “Our findings suggest a serious threat to public health, especially from bacteria such as E.coli, which were detected in half of the bags sampled.

“Consumers are alarmingly unaware of these risks and the critical need to sanitise their bags on a weekly basis.”

A poll revealed 97 per cent of shoppers who used eco-friendly bags never washed or bleached them.

E. coli is a species of bacterium found in the intestines of animals and humans. It is passed on through faeces and can survive in the environment.

It is usually transferred to humans by ingesting contaminated water, or contaminated food, such as meat, which has not been cooked properly.

A particularly nasty strain, known as E. coli 0157, can be lethal for children and older people and fewer than 100 of the tiny organisms can cause illness.

Most cases of E. coli in Britain are caused by children coming into contact with animal faeces. Cases are on the increase according to the Health Protection Agency, which said that there were 25,532 reported cases in 2009, a 7 per cent increase compared with 2008.

Ten children last year were admitted to hospital after an outbreak at a petting farm in Surrey.

A spokesman for Wrap said: “Recently there have been concerns in the press that there are health risks from reusing shopping bags in relation to poor hygiene. WRAP recommends that only clean bags in a good state of repair are used and that bags contaminated with food should be cleaned before reusing. Bags that are in poor state of repair should be recycled at carrier bag recycling points.”

Source: telegraph.co.uk By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor Published: 6:03PM BST 30 Jun 2010